


Sunflower

by pastmybedtime



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - High School, Anxiety, Domestic, Drama, Family, Family Fluff, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Getting Together, Go to bed, Hurt/Comfort, Love Triangles, Mental Illness, Multi, No Apocalypse, Novel, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Sequel, Slice of Life, Teen Romance, Too Much Drinking, Too much coffee, dang kids, do your homework
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2019-10-21 23:32:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17651780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastmybedtime/pseuds/pastmybedtime
Summary: They say home is where your heart is set in stone, and Clementine is sure she’s found that place. But with change comes growing pains, and sometimes an uproot is needed to really bloom. A story about high school, boys that play piano, that funny little thing called trauma, but also, ultimately, buckets of love. A sequel to "Waking the Dead".





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> ***make sure you read the prequel "Waking the Dead", based off of TWDG S1***

_It’s in the mail._

It was Monday, it was sweltering, and Clementine was in the middle of gulping down a glass of iced tea when those four simple words slammed to the forefront of her mind like a semi. Her attention snapped to her foster father, who had just ambled into the kitchen, thumbing through the stack of bills.

“Anything for me?” she said, the words practically exploding from her mouth. Omid jumped and nearly dropped his pile onto the floor.

“Geez, Clem!” he said, steadying himself on the counter. “We need to put a bell on you.”

She poked her nose over the stack of letters, violently searching for her name, but he was already shaking his balding head.

Nothing.

Clementine crunched moodily on an ice cube and reminded herself, _it’s in the mail._

The next day, Clementine waited faithfully for the mailman to push the post through the slot. The envelopes were stark white against the woven rag-rug—the one Christa and Omid told people they got from a village in Mexico when they’d really bought it off a vendor in Vegas. Clementine ran her fingers over every plastic sleeve, every flashy flyer proclaiming that _she_ could save twenty percent on all appliances today only. She sifted through the mail twice, but nothing had her name on it. No news had come.

_It’s in the mail._

She stayed in her room on Wednesday, nose buried in her history textbook while her ears anticipated the telltale _squeak_ of the un-oiled hinges of the mail slot. She held her breath, as though the sound of her exhale would mask her name being called down the hall. She sat, she waited.

Still, nothing had come for her.

A concerned Christa asked her about it at dinner time. “Wouldn’t it be easier for him to just _call_ you?” she said. “I mean, for something as big as this…”

Clem was bouncing her knee so the table shook. Nervous habit. “We said we’d always write to each other about the momentous stuff.” She stopped bouncing, and instead pushed her steamed broccoli around the plate so it left a watery green trail. “He promised he’d write if it happened and I just...I just want to have it in writing.”

Her foster parents didn’t press, to which she was grateful. In the last five years of her young life, Clem had lived in four separate places, shedding bits of herself along the way. She’d lost the photo album of her parents in the move to the foster home, and the only thing that remained of Ed and Diana was the baseball cap on her head. Clementine had also lost her crayon drawings she’d done of Lee’s house and of Kenny’s family. They were probably all shoved in a sketchbook out of embarrassment for her eight-year-old self, but Clementine wished she had them back in her hands. Even her crude, eager scribbles would have been a comfort, or at least a way to remember what her neighbors had looked like.

Simply put, it was easier to move on to the next house, the next family, with less on her back weighing her down. But now when she looked at the bare walls of her temporary bedroom, all she wanted was to fill them with those pieces of herself she’d left behind. For her birthday, Christa and Omid had given her a corkboard and a set of pins, and told her to use it for her art, for her calendar, for important notices from school. Instead, Clementine had pinned the entire expanse of the surface with her letters from Lee, all written on the same type of notebook paper in his neat, scholarly handwriting. And they were lengthy. Omid often teased that Lee was sending her transcriptions of his long-winded Civil War lectures. Clementine didn’t mind. She enjoyed sitting on her bed and poring over his descriptions of life in the prison (she assumed he gave her the PG version), his opinions on books, and his endless words of encouragement and affirmations of care.

The papers varied in levels of fadedness, dating back to three years prior. But they all began the same with “Dear Clem” and ended the same with “Love, Lee”. She suspected that the prison store only offered one type of notebook—the cheap kind with a gritty, newsprinty texture—but she cherished each note and gave each a special space on the board. Of course, she and Lee still talked on the phone often, and Clementine went to Meriwether County to visit him when she could. But there was something about having the physical proof of correspondence in her possession that made her feel assured. She could look at the letters displayed side-by-side and think of them as a countdown.

_It’s still in the mail._

Clementine white-knuckled her way through the rest of the week, heart palpitating and then promptly falling as the mailman came again and again with nothing addressed to her.

It was Friday afternoon, and Clementine sat in front of her board, holding a silent debate with herself. She squinted at the sea of penciled letters, a pushpin balanced between her thumb and forefinger. Should she make space for one more letter? It was hard to ignore the raging doubts in her mind telling her that something must have gone wrong for Lee not to write. He _always_ wrote for good news, he was _always_ prompt, and he was _always_ thorough. Sometimes annoyingly so.

Clem stabbed the pin back into the cork and swallowed against the lump in her throat. For all these years she had clung to the hope that, maybe someday, she and Lee would find their way back together, that they could be a family. A stupid thing to hope, considering her track record. Clementine had her letters, and maybe her future with Lee ended with nothing but hopes as faded as prison-stocked newsprint.

She was sulking on her bed when Christa popped her head into the room. “Dinner’ll be ready in a few,” she said, hesitating before continuing, “Was school okay?”

Clem made an noncommittal sound.

“Any fun plans this weekend?”

Clem shrugged.

Christa’s short nails drummed dully on the doorframe. “You’re not even going to ask if the mail came?” she asked. “You _must_ be down.”

Clem shook her head listlessly. “No point,” she muttered. “And it’s not nice to tease.”

“I guess you don't want this, then?”

Clementine lifted her gaze to see that the thin lines on Christa’s face disappeared underneath a broad smile. She held up what looked like a postcard, the words “Greetings from Georgia!” brandished on the front in generic block letters. There was nothing spectacular about it, unless...

“Is that...for me?” Clementine asked blankly.

Christa’s head went up and down in a slow nod. As if moving through a dream, Clementine held out her hands and took the postcard. She stared at the glossy front, too afraid to turn it over. She probably looked visibly frightened because she heard Omid’s encouraging voice from the doorway say, “Go on,” followed by Christa’s sharp “Don’t rush her.”

Clem held her breath and turned over the card. There were only a few words written on the space to the left, but her eyes shot right to the address. The sight of her name caused a noise to rise up in her throat, something caught between a gasp and a sob:

_Clementine Everett_

_1416 Glendale Way_

_Macon, GA 31206_

Everett. _Everett._ Clem couldn’t read any more—her eyes had fogged up with happy, happy tears. She buried her face into the crook of her arm, soaking her shirt sleeve as her foster parents rushed her on the bed. She felt two pairs of arms envelop her, and the postcard briefly left her grasp as both Omid and Christa fought over the card, eager to read its contents. It said:

_Dear Clem,_

_The adoption went through._

_Love,_

_Lee_

The shortest and most wonderful thing Lee had ever, ever written.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *stumbles in 4 months late with starbucks* heyyy ;)
> 
> you guys, i'm so excited to post this--i've been sitting on these chapters since christmas, and the more i played TWDG season 4, the more inspired i got (ya'll, i'm ass-deep in this AU, i've got like playlists for every character and pinterest boards and everything. i'm READY2ROLL). i've always wanted to write YA fiction and now i've finally got the excuse (especially with all these teen characters growing and mingling, i feel god in this chili's tonight).
> 
> i think the story's format is going to be a little more freeform than usual--i might include some interludes where the story will go off for a minute to explore another character or a different setup or episode.
> 
> thanks, all. let's roll.*


	2. Welcome to River City

_"Macon! Next stop, Macon!”_

Clementine removed one of her earbuds as the driver brought the bus screeching to a halt. She stood up carefully—the heat had glued her thighs to the leathery seats—and stepped into the sticky, evening air. It wasn’t a long walk back to the house from the bus station, maybe fifteen minutes tops. But Clem still cut behind the general store and trudged through the knee-deep brambles to get home before the sun set.

Clementine didn’t like walking around Macon at night. To be fair, she didn’t like walking around anywhere by herself, period. But Macon especially. There was something about the streets that made her think she was being watched, or worse, _followed._ Paranoia was one of the things that had gone away with a little time and a generous sprinkle of therapy, but her hometown remained the one place she couldn’t shake. The hot pavement must have soaked in ghosts along with the sun.

Normally, she would call Lee and he’d be there in less than a minute to pick her up, but he looked so tired lately. More so than usual. Clementine suspected that he was picking up extra shifts at Save Lots, and knew he’d deny it if she asked. Permanent records were funny little things, and Lee’s had been tarnished _twice_ by incarceration, like a shit stain on a white wall. The teaching job he’d had at the community college was long gone. For the past few years, he worked the night shifts to bring in rent money while he continued the search for another teaching position.

Still, for all the long hours he spent shelving boxes, he never passed up an opportunity to spend time with Clementine. She remembered the first summer he brought her home after the adoption became official, and it had easily held her most precious memories. They took walks in the park, went to the movies, the carnivals, ate ice cream, and did pretty much anything else Lee felt like they’d missed out on. Clementine remembered that she had been shocked to hear that Lee had never seen a fireworks show in his entire life, on account that he didn’t like the noise. So, she dragged him to one at the end of August and even helped him shove cotton in his ears to ease the transition. When the show was over, Clem leaned across their picnic blanket in anticipation and asked Lee how he liked it. With a frown he replied, “Still too loud,” and she teased him about it for weeks.

It wasn’t until Clem was older that she realized Lee probably never wanted her to see how worn out he really was. No matter how dark the circles under his eyes grew, no matter how he seemed to drag a few paces behind, he always had a smile on his face when they were together. It wasn’t just the long hours spent shelving boxes and handling deliveries; she knew from the heaviness of his shoulders that he was carrying bucket loads of rejections. He could have written his resume in the sky, and still no school would hire him. It wasn’t fair.

Clementine reached the end of the sidewalk and came upon their tiny rental with the prickly, brown lawn. She didn’t mind the smallness of the house—Lee had snagged the first place he could find the second he was out of prison—but the neighborhood had gotten a lot lonelier since. She could count the number of houses that used to house a friendly neighbor or a classmate she recognized from school. But friends had moved away, and strangers took their places. The identical lines of grey rental units made Clementine think of holding pens: not quite homes.

Bars of gold light streamed onto the rocky walkway, so she assumed Lee was up and awake. Clem fumbled with her keys at the door just as the sun dipped below the horizon, and she let herself in. The house was slightly cooler than the outside, and Clementine let the sweaty straps of her backpack slide off her shoulders.

“That you, Clem?” called a voice.

Of course it was her, but they always posed the question anyway. Better safe than sorry. “It’s me,” she replied, making a beeline for the kitchen. Lee was already seated at the table, nursing a cup of coffee with his only existing hand—the right one—and looking like he just rolled out of bed. To be fair, he probably had. He usually kept his beard trimmed and clean, but today it hid his jaw under uncombed scruff. He smiled, and the bags under his eyes appeared slightly less deep, but not by much.

“I was out like a light,” he said, stifling a huge yawn. “I’ve gotta head out again in a bit.”

“I can make dinner,” Clem offered, coming around the table to give him a quick kiss. “Or I can order pizza.”

Lee looked doubtfully at his mug. “Pizza and coffee, huh?”

“Breakfast of champions,” said Clementine, zipping to the fridge to grab something to drink. Her tongue felt like sandpaper. “I’ll call Al’s, they usually deliver the quickest. You need to eat something before you go.”

Lee watched with a look torn between amusement and disgust as she drank straight from the jug of juice. “Use a _cup,_ Clem,” he scolded mildly. “And where’ve you been all day?”

“Library,” she said between thirsty gulps. “They’ve got air conditioning.”

“You’re there a lot,” he noted. “Almost every day.”

Clementine could read his tone like a road sign: _get some friends._

“I bring my laptop,” she defended weakly.

Lee’s chair creaked as he stood to dump the rest of his joe into the sink. “Have you seen Sarah lately? Why don’t you two hang out tonight?”

“No thanks.”

“I thought you two were good friends.”

Clementine huffed. She didn’t feel like explaining to Lee about how she and Sarah _used_ to be good friends in middle school, but the transition from eighth to ninth grade had stirred up some dirt. Clementine had joined the baseball team to fulfill a gym credit, and Sarah joined the art club. From there, there were different friend groups, some rumors, petty gossip, and broken communication that all ended in hurt feelings and, sequentially, Clementine failing gym.

“Dumb, high school drama,” said Clementine at last.

“Ah,” said Lee, standing awkwardly at the sink. “Sorry, sweet pea.”

She shrugged. Clem remembered a time when she thought high school was the golden opportunity to start anew. It was a chance for her to leave the old Clem behind—the Clem that hauled around trauma like a backpack full of rocks. Her freshman year, however, had felt more like a storm of chaos and confusion, and the last thing she wanted to do was walk right back into it in the fall.

“It’s fine,” said Clem.

Lee’s dad instincts had grown quite strong over the years. He was a teacher at heart, so any time they breached a topic he had any amount of interest in, Lee often lost himself in a lecture. But these days, Clem figured that her frequent mood swings made him opt for new, more drastic tactics.

She winced as his arm suddenly wrapped around her in a bone-crushing hug, squeezing the air from her lungs like a deflating balloon.

“Anyone would be lucky to be friends with you,” Lee said firmly, lifting her off the ground the moment she tried to squirm away. “You’re the best. Say it.”

_“Mmfh!”_ she said, voice muffled against his armpit.

“I can’t hear you.”

_“Mm da besth!”_ she replied, and Lee didn’t release her before giving her a sloppy forehead kiss. Clem wriggled away and laughed, but it came out more like a cough. Even with one arm, he was the only person who could hug the breath right out of her.

“Now get that pizza,” Lee said, stealing a glance at his watch before hurrying off to shower. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Ah. So there _would_ be a lecture after all.

In twenty-nine minutes exactly, the two were opening a box of pepperoni pizza and settling in for a quick meal together. Lee had dumped a bag of lettuce into a bowl “for health”, but both were too busy scarfing down their greasy entrees to notice how wilty the leaves were.

“If I said we might move, what would you think?” Lee suddenly asked.

Clementine’s cheese fell off her slice and landed in a gloop in her plate. She looked up to see if he was joking, but there was no trace of a smile under his beard.

“Uh...move where?”

“Richmond.”

She stared dumbly. “Like, _Virginia_ Richmond?”

Lee nodded. Clementine waited for him to elaborate, but he seemed to be waiting for her reaction first. “Uh...I think I’d say, ‘why would we need to move to Richmond?’”

He chuckled. “I don't want to jinx anything. Tell me your thoughts.”

Clem pushed aside the cloud of annoyance and tried to really think about it. She hated hypotheticals. “I guess…” she began, “I guess that would be cool.”

Lee’s eyebrows quirked. He wasn't expecting that. “You think?”

“Yeah.” As long as they were speaking hypothetically. “But...why?”

His brow furrowed, as though he was trying to figure it out for himself. “Do you remember that interview I had with Carley? For the journal?”

“Yeah?” But that must have been at least two years ago. Carley, a journalist for WABE had visited Lee a few times while he was behind bars for his story on the _Marsh House Murder._ Clementine had cut out the article and tucked it in the box along with all her Lee letters. For all the horrible memories that Clem associated with her time in Savannah, the article painted an almost beautiful picture of her life with Lee, and what he’d sacrificed to get her back. “Did the article actually _do_ something?”

Lee nodded slowly. “The University of Richmond said I’ve been on their radar. They called and want me on the staff.”

_“What?”_ Clementine dropped her pizza completely.

“Obviously they want an interview first,” Lee amended, but Clem knew he was just being modest. “It sounds crazy, I know.”

“Well, of course they want you,” she said. Her mind was reeling. She didn’t know _what_ to think. “I mean, I would miss Omid and Christa.”

Lee nodded sympathetically. “We’ve made some lifelong friends.”

Clementine stared at her plate. Besides those two, everyone she had known in Macon had either moved, left her, or died.

Except for Lee.

“What’s on your mind, sweetie?” he asked gently.

His voice was soothing, slowing Clementine’s heart a pace or two. In her final session, her therapist told her she had all the tools she needed to move on. Through every move, every transition, every prison sentence and foster home, they’d finally found a way to hold onto each other. Lee was her only constant—her pillar of strength as the foundations of Macon cracked beneath her feet. Maybe it was time for them to uproot and replant somewhere bigger, somewhere they could breathe better.

“You say the word, and we stay right here,” said Lee.

Clementine looked up into Lee’s soft, brown eyes and never felt surer about anything in her life. “I want to go,” she said. Wherever he was, that’s where she wanted to be, too.

xxx

By the end of summer, Lee’s tiny rental house was empty, final goodbyes were tearfully said, and the 9-hour road trip from Macon to Richmond was underway. The pale sky swelled with the promise of dawn as Lee led a sleepy Clem to the car, where she fell back asleep until the drone of talk radio prodded her awake. By mid-morning, warm wind blasted in through the windows and the open road stretched ahead. More than once, Clementine stuck her hand out to see if she could feel the air change when they crossed the state lines.

“So, what’s it like there?” asked Clem. They'd stopped for fuel in South Carolina and sipped on gas-station iced teas while they waited for the tank to fill up.

“It ain’t any less hot, I’ll say that,” Lee said, wiping glistening sweat off his brow. “But it's got lots of historical sites. There’s Historic Tredegar, the Black History Museum, Hollywood Cemetery—”

Clementine shot him a cheesy look. “Nerd.”

Lee yanked down the brim of her cap so she couldn’t see. “Wouldn’t have gotten this job, otherwise,” he said.

“Okay, but what’s it _like_ there?” Clem pressed as he picked up his receipt. “What did you notice when you and Omid went?”

Lee had taken a week-long trip to do his interview at the college, and once the job situation was settled, Omid helped him find a place to live. Just two History nerds nerding it up in historic Richmond, at least that’s how Christa described it.

“You’ll like it,” Lee said decidedly. “It’s a lot more artsy than Macon, so you’ll have lots to do.”

Artsy. Clementine wasn’t a hundred-percent sure what that meant. It brought to mind people sitting around at coffee shops and wearing knitted beanies, for some reason. She made Lee give her the details, and he talked of the riverfront and Canal Walk, of hiking trails and nature parks, and districts for shops and theatres. With her feet on the dash and Joni Mitchell wailing from the radio, Clementine tried to put a picture in her head until, weary and antsy, they were pulling into the driveway of their new home.

The outside of the house was white with a pitched, blue roof, and leafy trees framed the square windows on either side. It was already bigger than their grey rental and looked so pleasant that Clem was sure the house wasn’t theirs. The moment the car came to a stop, she was already racing up the walkway as evening settled cool on the lawn.

“You like it?” Lee laughed, leaving their bags piled in the car to follow her.

“We have a _porch!”_ she called back, plopping down in one of the wicker chairs. “We can watch the fireflies from right here!”

Lee jingled the house key in front of her face, so it flashed like silverfish scales. “Care to do the honors?”

Clementine turned the key until the lock _clicked_ , and the ocean-blue door led them into the house. _Their_ house. The inside was so open and bright, and the sun behind the trees left gold patterns winking on the hardwood floors. Clem passed empty room after empty room, each one presenting a canvas of possibilities. She raced up the staircase and passed a small, glowing box on the wall. The sight made her sigh with relief: an alarm system.

Lee had thought of everything.

By the time he had caught up with her, Clementine was already in the empty expanse of her bedroom—or rather, the room she had claimed for herself—calculating where each piece of furniture and every poster would go. She had more space than she was used to, and more natural light for that matter. Clementine looked up from her open window to acknowledge Lee leaning on the door frame.

“Remember when you painted my bedroom purple?” she asked him.

He whistled through his teeth. “Now _that_ was a long time ago.” In fact, it was the first time Lee had brought her home as a newly-registered foster parent, maybe six years prior. “I had lavender paint on my hands for days.”

“And I got mad because you wouldn’t let me paint my desk purple, too,” grinned Clem.

“I didn’t want you living in a purple hellscape,” Lee replied. He stepped into the room and had a brief look around the neutral-colored walls and uncarpeted floor. “What do you think? Do we need to dig up some old paint cans?”

Clem met Lee in the center of the room to affectionately bump her head against his shoulder. His expression looked so light, like a weight had been lifted. Lee deserved to plant new roots in a place he found on his own—a place free of ghosts that liked to hang out in old memories—and maybe she deserved something like that, too. Maybe a blank canvas was okay.

Lee wrapped his one arm around her and pulled her close. “Do you like it?” he asked.

Clementine exhaled the breath she had been holding. “It’s perfect, pop,” she said.

There was a soft glimpse of teeth as a smile loosened his jaw. “I think so, too.”

She was still the same Clementine she’d been in Macon, and yet, she was someone entirely different. Maybe it was time she found out who that was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so after one-thousand years, i'm finally able to write Clem and Lee being all domestic, and it's healing my soul. i really wanted to uproot these two and plop them down in a new location--Clem moves around so much in the series and is forced to adapt. time for fresh starts all around, and we've got more characters to meet. growth 'n stuff~*


	3. Starburst

The unpacking of her bedroom was coming along, for the most part. For all the moving she’d done in her lifetime, Clementine had managed to collect quite a bit of clutter—she’d thrown out at least four garbage bags full of an assortment of it before the move. Now that she was starting fresh, Clem hoped to change her hoarding habits. She’d kept the patchwork quilt Christa had made for her birthday the year before (Christa had gone through a hardcore sewing phase, but after the quilt was done, Clementine never saw her pick up a needle again). Omid had sent over some string lights for her bookshelves, and they twinkled amongst her vast, newly-organized collection of fiction. The letters from Lee were relocated from her cork board to a special box Clem had designated, and the board was repurposed to document her new adventures.

Whenever _those_ were going to happen.

Clementine glanced at the alarm clock beside her freshly-made bed: lunchtime. All this unpacking was making her hungry, and unsurprisingly, bored of unpacking. She went downstairs and slid into the kitchen, stepping over boxes bursting with pots and pans to get to the fridge. She slapped some peanut butter on bread as she looked about the cluttered counter space. She and Lee had promised to get the kitchen in working order today, but the more Clementine stared at the mountains of plates and silverware, the more she hated the idea.

Nothing like a move to make her realize how much stuff they had.

Clem took her sandwich to the table and shoved a stack of mail aside to make space. Most of it was junk—they had only been living in Richmond for a few days and were already getting junk mail—but her eye caught the print on a neon pink flyer. She read it as she licked peanut butter from the roof of her mouth:

_RICHMOND SUMMER CARNIVAL_

_Join us as we end the Summer with a bang!_

_THIS WEEKEND ONLY_

Clementine was pouring over the details just as Lee came into the kitchen. There was a loud _THUD_ as he stubbed his toe on a box filled with pans.

 _“Shit!”_ he hissed.

“Swear,” noted Clementine.

Lee winced and hopped over, sinking into the chair across from her to massage his foot. “We _need_ to do something about this kitchen, Clem,” he grumbled. “Pretty soon I won’t have any toes left.”

Clementine nodded distractedly. She was busy reading about cotton candy, ferris wheels, and a promising-looking fireworks show.

“Finish up your sandwich, and then we’re unpacking this kitchen,” Lee said definitively. “Honestly, it should have been the _first_ place we tackled.”

“Or,” Clem said, shoving the flyer under his nose, “we could do _this_ instead.”

Lee barely glanced at the flyer before waving it aside. “No, no. I can’t take an evening off, not when there’s so much to do before school starts,” he said. “That goes for both of us.”

“But _Leeee,”_ she whined, giving the paper a friendly little wave. _“Rides.”_

Lee did not look impressed. “Clementine Everett…”

“They’re not having it again until next year,” she countered quickly. “Can’t we go just for a little bit? You’re the one who said I needed to get out more.”

“I meant with kids your own age, not an old man like me.” Clementine stuck out her bottom lip in a pout. That usually worked. “You _really_ want to go?” he asked.

She nodded, and as Lee let out a long sigh, she knew she’d won.

“But I am drawing the line at rides,” he said sternly as Clementine came around the table to give him a squeezing hug.

Considering Lee had thrown his back out the last time they’d gone on a rollercoaster together, this suited her fine. “Deal!”

“And we’re unpacking this kitchen the minute we get home.”

Clem wrinkled her nose. That was cost of doing business, she suspected. “Deal.”

xxx

The air in Skyline Park buzzed with talk and music blaring from static-rimmed speakers, and Clementine swooned as she was met with a scent cloud of buttered popcorn. Dirt paths led the way through rows of game setups, the canvas wavering in the afternoon breeze. Clem and Lee wove in and out of the game tents and face-painting booths. The ferris wheel rotated lazily in the distance. It wasn’t long before Lee couldn’t resist the pull any longer and went to purchase a bag of sugared almonds. As they crunched on the nuts, Clementine watched the passersby, at the groups of teenagers chattering and shoving each other around. She knew they weren’t looking in her direction, but she still somehow felt self-conscious.

Lee frowned at the winding rollercoasters on the horizon. “You sure you want to go?”

“And are you sure you don’t want to come?” she countered.

“Just looking at those things is giving me whiplash,” he said. Lee then slid her a chain of red tickets. “Go have fun. We can meet up again for the fireworks, huh?”

Clementine gave him a smile, but she suddenly didn’t feel nearly as excited to venture off by herself anymore. She wondered if Lee felt as out of place as she did.

“Don’t tell me you’re just going to sit on a bench and eat nuts while I ride the rides?” she said.

Lee took a handful of almonds and crunched them loudly between his teeth. “Sounds like the perfect afternoon.”

Maybe adults were numb to social anxiety. They were lucky.

Clementine shoved the tickets into her jean shorts’ pocket and wandered in the direction of the ferris wheel, hyper-aware of her aloneness in a crowd of rowdy teenagers. She saw groups of high-schoolers cheering each other on as they chucked ping-pong balls into fishbowls. She slipped by cliques of girls snapping pictures of each other and guys attempting to climb the grating against the rollercoaster. It didn’t seem to matter _what_ kids were doing, as long as they were doing it in a group.

Clementine stepped into the first line she came across, if only to get out of the open for a moment.

The line was a lengthy one and snaked back and forth between twisted rope dividers. There was a couple standing right behind Clementine, and she could hear the sounds of their lips smacking against each other like water drips every couple of seconds. Clementine inched forward as far as she dared without bumping into the group in front.

“How long does this line go?” Clem heard one of the boys ahead say. “This had better be worth it, you guys, it’s five tickets a person.”

The group of kids in front of her continued chattering amongst themselves, and Clementine averted her eyes elsewhere. She almost wanted to ask _what_ she was standing in line for, since she hadn’t bothered to check. But that would most certainly look stupid. Instead, she pulled out her phone and pretended to check her messages, all the while tuning out the couple making out behind her.

“You guys,” said the boy again, “I think it’s only two per cart. One of us is going to have to ride solo.”

“Aw, we’ll fit. Violet’s not that big, I’m sure we can all squeeze in together.”

“I am _not_ riding with Louis,” came the girl’s voice without any hesitation.

“Then Marlon and I will go together, and you can mope in a cart by yourself. _He’ll_ be my Ride-or-Die.”

“Sorry, Louis,” said Marlon. “I love you man, but you really can’t handle your haunted houses.”

 _A haunted house._ So that’s where she was headed.

The boy Clementine could only assume was Louis let out a note of betrayal. “You’re both just gonna abandon me?”

“You know how you get.”

Scattered chuckles. A long whine.

“Fine. You two have fun, but there is _no way_ I’m riding this thing by myself.”

Clementine was in the middle of swiping through her phone’s calendar when she realized the conversation had paused. Against her better judgement, she glanced up, and was stopped by a pair of eyes the color of deep sienna. The boy was boring holes into her face with his gaze. From this close, Clem could see a storm of freckles spattered against the boy’s warm, brown skin as he said an easy, “Hey.”

Clem blinked at him, caught off-guard by his rapt attention. “Uh...hey.”

The corners of his mouth crooked with mischief. “I’m Louis.”

“Okay,” she said.

Her response punctured his bubble a tad. She hadn’t meant to sound so curt, but he recovered quickly. The boy was tall and had to stoop down to meet her eye line, a few beaded necklaces swinging from his throat as he did so. “So mystery girl,” he said, voice like butter, “are you riding this thing by yourself or are you spoken for?”

Clementine looked him up and down from his pre-torn jeans to his tactfully-rolled t-shirt sleeves. She met his sparkling eyes and asked bluntly, “Do rides make you sick or something?”

His grin faltered, but he masked the moment with a fake chuckle. “Haha, what?”

One of his friends snickered behind him. “She’s not buying it, dude.”

“Okay, wait, no, don’t listen to Marlon.” Louis’ dulcet tone had immediately evaporated, turning into one of mild panic. “I promise that’s not it.”

Clementine folded her arms. “Then why won’t anyone else ride with you?”

“Because he never shuts up,” said Violet sharply. She had a lean build and pale, blonde hair that framed her deep-set eyes. “We can’t enjoy the ride if Louis is running his fucking mouth the whole fucking time.”

“I get chatty when I’m nervous, okay?” said Louis with some defense.

“All right, that’s enough, kids.” Marlon stepped between the two. He was sporting a sleek letter jacket with white leather sleeves, even though it must have been eighty degrees out. He smiled apologetically in Clem’s direction. “You don’t need to ride with him,” he told her. “Uh, sorry he tried to rope you in.”

Before they could turn away and argue amongst themselves, Clementine blurted, “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

Three pairs of eyes went to her. She cleared her throat and continued, “Honestly, I’d rather not go alone.”

Louis pressed his lips together, as if daring to believe his luck. He stepped away from his friends to lean down and whisper, “Okay, but...I talk _a lot.”_

“She said she’ll go with you, dumbass,” Violet interjected. “Don’t make her change her mind!”

Even though Clem wasn’t entirely sure what she’d gotten herself into, the matter was more or less settled. As the line moved closer and closer to the brooding structure of the dark house, she felt her chest flutter with excitement. She had gone on a haunted hayride before, and it wasn’t the sort of thing that scared her. There were things scarier than people jumping around in costumes.

Clem and Louis watched his friends as they boarded onto a cart and disappeared under the stone archway and around a dark bend. Once they were gone, it was just Clem and Louis standing alone on the creaky wooden platform, awaiting the next car to take them into the darkness. Fake lightning flashed and white smoke curled around their ankles.

“Did I tell you my name already?” he asked.

“Yeah, you did,” Clem replied.

“Oh. Haha. Duh.” Louis paused. “And did I ask your name already?”

“It’s Clementine.”

“Oh, neat! Like the song!”

 _“Next, please!_  "

Louis balked as a cart sidled down the rails, screeching to a halt in front of them. Clementine climbed into the front seat first, and half-expected Louis to stay glued to the platform. After taking a steadying breath, he clambered in after her. The metal bar eased down, locking them both in with a satisfying _CLICK._

“Point of no return, huh?” Louis said with a weak chuckle. His fingers paled as he gripped the cold metal. “Oof. I hate this. This was a bad idea.”

“If you don’t like scary rides, why ride them?” Clem asked. “Like, not to be rude, but maybe you shouldn’t do something you’re not comfortable with.”

Louis already had his eyes squeezed shut, even though the ride hadn’t started. “Oh, it’s because of some stupid pact we all made. We promised we’d go on every single ride this year and—” He let out a frightened squeak as the cart jerked forward. “Yup. This was _definitely_ a bad idea.”

The air around them quickly dropped in temperature as the walls slowly closed in around them. Clem tried to think of something bracing to say. “It’s all pretend,” she tried.

“Y-yeah, I know,” Louis said, not looking less afraid in the slightest. This boy needed some tangible assurance that everything was going to be okay.

“I’ll be your Ride-or-Die if you’ll be mine,” Clementine said, harkening back to what she heard him say earlier. “We either ride together, or we die together.”

Louis’ laugh was twinged with panic. At least he’d laughed. “Ha, yeah! Ride-or-Dies!” A burst of hot steam blasted them from the side, and Louis’ voice shot up a few octaves.

That was when the talking started.

The deeper their cart delved into the bowels of the ride, the more Louis ran his mouth. Non-stop. Half the time, Clementine couldn’t even understand what he was saying—all she heard was a steady stream of yammerings occasionally interrupted by a yelp of terror. It was like he thought that the more his mouth was moving, the less he would remember to be afraid.

It wasn’t working.

“Ooh. Strobe lights. That’s neat. Neat effect, that. And I’ve always liked smoke machines. You stick a smoke machine anywhere and that place is already, like, _athousandpercentcooler_. I see them used during Halloween and stuff, but I always thought it would be way more awesome to see them used during, like, _normal_ events. Like, oh no, we’ve got a bake sale going on, but how are we gonna bring the people in? Throw on the smoke machine, and everyone at school is already lining up just for the bake sale _experience._ Sales are up, the choir is getting new robes, and everyone profits. And don’t even get me started on—”

There was movement as something popped out from behind one of the tattered walls. It bared its claws and snarled in Louis’ face, who screamed and flailed his arms back—hitting Clem smack in the mouth.

“Shit!” he gasped. “Was that you?”

She felt his clammy hands go right to her face to check for damage. He recoiled them quickly as if he’d been burned—or, more likely, he’d realized it was awkward. “It’s too dark, I can’t tell if this is blood or spit. _Oh man, I am so sorry!”_

“I’m fine,” said Clem, tasting iron.

Strangely enough, the blow seemed to help Louis ground himself to reality. Instead of screaming about the basement of mutilated bodies or the tunnel of cobwebs, Louis fussed over Clementine, trying to shine his phone light to see the damage he’d caused. The horrors of the ride were more like afterthoughts.

“I’m such an _idiot,”_ he said, letting out scattered cries of alarm as the cart jostled around sharp turns. “Are you sure you’re— _EEP_ —sure you’re okay? We should get someone to stop the— _AAH SHIT_ —stop the ride!”

Clem made him put his phone away, warning him that he’d lose it, but Louis remained hysterical and inconsolable until a white light broke through the blackness. Clementine’s stomach flipped as the cart came squealing to a final stop. As Louis studied her face in the daylight, his brow furrowed in dismay.

“I killed you,” he whispered.

The carny herded them out of the cart before she could respond, and they stumbled into the grass where Clem could get a better look at herself. Her phone’s camera reflected a swollen bump on her lip, shining red where her tooth had given it a tiny cut.

“It was an accident,” Clem said as reassuringly as she could. “See? Not bleeding. Not dead.”

She then felt something warm dribbling down her chin, and bright crimson landed in a bead on her hand. Oh. She _was_ bleeding.

Louis fumbled for his wrist, where he untied a bright yellow bandana amongst his clump of leather bracelets. He thrust it towards her face, and Clem accepted it graciously, pressing the cotton fabric against her mouth. “Seriously. It’s not that bad,” she said, wincing as it stung.

“You’re braver than any U.S. Marine,” Louis joked, but Clem could tell right off the bat that he still felt awful. “You’re really good at that. You know, at getting me to calm down.”

She raised her brows. “Are you usually worse?”

Louis laughed. He had a contagious one. “Way worse. Though I can safely say I’ve never hurt anyone before.”

Clementine licked her lip. Most of the bleeding had stopped. She kept waiting for him to locate his friends again, to give her a cheery “see ya!” before disappearing back into the crowds. But he didn’t. He just stood there, watching her mop up, his expression anxious.

“Um...look,” Louis said after a minute. “Let me try to make it up to you. You sacrificed your well-being to ride with me, it’s the least I can do.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said quickly. “Even though you did blow out my eardrums in there—”

But Louis was already cutting her off with violent shakes of his head. “No, please, you gotta let me buy you an ice cream or something, or I’m literally never going to forgive myself.”

Clementine sighed. If anything, he was persistent.

Louis dragged her through the masses and towards the tantalizing scents of fried dough and powdered sugar. They wove through the vendors, skipping past the cotton candy booths and funnel cake completely. He asked if she’d ever had a deep-fried Oreo, to which Clementine told him no. She didn’t add that it sounded like something that would give her diabetes. He ordered ten of the things.

“Try one!” he said, giving the oil-stained paper bag a shake.

Hesitantly, Clementine reached in until her fingers brushed a lump of warm dough. She took a small bite, and she was smacked with sweetness.

“Holy crap,” she muttered. Powdered sugar and buttercream melted on her tongue. “Okay. We’re officially even.”

Louis’ boyish grin returned as he exhaled a breath of relief. “Thanks.”

By the time the bag was empty and their fingers were licked clean, the sun was starting to dip below the skyline.

“Well, thanks for the adventure,” Clem said, still wondering why Louis hadn’t run off to find his friends yet. “I should really get going. I promised I’d meet my dad.”

“Oh. Yeah,” he said, whipping out his phone to glance at the screen. “I better bounce, too. They’re shouting at me via all-caps.” He started to wave, and then he caught himself. “I uh, I would say ‘see you around’, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you at Ericson’s…”

The name sounded familiar. “That’s my high school,” she said. “Or, I mean, I just moved here, so it’s my _future_ high school, I guess.”

Louis looked ecstatic. “Excellent!” he said, and added, “Guess I’ll see you around, then.”

They said brief goodbyes and went their separate ways, Louis craning back to wave every couple of seconds until he was gone. It wasn’t until Clementine was on the edge of the grassy field that she realized she still had Louis’ handkerchief in her pocket, now stained with rust-colored splotches. She’d have to wash it and give it back, if she ever did end up seeing him again.

But kids were different once they stepped inside school walls. At least, that’s what experience had taught her.

Lee was already seated on their picnic blanket when she found him on the hill and she plopped herself down beside him. He didn't mention the red bump on her lip, but shot her a mild look of concern. She waved it off. As they chatted lightly, the sun set and the night rose tall in the sky. The grounds murmured in anticipation. Even the crickets had quieted, like an orchestra waiting for the conductor's wand to fall.

"Are you nervous about going back to school?" Clementine suddenly asked. "I mean...starting your new job?"

Lee looked thoughtful as he kept his sights on the rapidly darkening sky. "Sure am," he said. "No matter how great the opportunity, it's still nerve-wracking. I don't know a single person who hasn't felt anxious about a new job, or a new school, or a new house."

Clementine leaned her head against his shoulder. "So...how do you get over it?"

"I don't think you do," he said.

She grumbled and slid face-down onto the blanket. "Great," she grumbled.

"Chin up. Those kids are more scared of you than you are of them."

"That's bears, Lee."

Lee patted her knee. "There's my sass-master."

She heaved a sigh. Clem had never thought of Lee as someone who got scared. He'd barreled through a storm to save her once. Lee was unshakable. And yet, something as small as a First Day still touched a fragile spot for everyone. Even for someone like him.

When the first explosion sounded off, Clementine's nerves evaporated. She sat up to see starbursts of gold shattering across the sky, and laughed out loud as Lee covered one ear with the one hand he had.

The fireworks were louder than her insecurities, and for the moment, she let herself be free of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was so stoked to finally write interactions between Clem and the Gang. i love these wild goofy teenagers. more of them to come for sure.
> 
> i'm gearing up for the final episode of TWDG and i guess i'm as ready as i'll ever be???? hby????
> 
> as always, thanks for your gorgeous, insightful, wonderful comments. you're bomb. i'm just glad people are enjoying my brain dumps and mountains of feelings, so thank you.*


	4. Oh, My Darlin

It was midnight, and shadows crawled like dark animals across Clementine’s ceiling. She watched them shift and dance, hoping that the gentle movements would somehow will her eyes to sleep. A breeze brushed against her exposed feet, and she slipped them back under the safety of her blanket. After a minute, the heat made her uncomfortable, and she poked her feet back out of the covers. The cycle went on until the clock on her table read 1:38 AM, and Clem aimed a groan of frustration at her ceiling.

She wanted to find her homeroom early the next day, before the halls were crawling with students. In order for that to happen, she _needed_ to get some sleep. She needed to be as prepared as she could be. But it was always right before Clementine was asleep that her brain decided it was the best time to drudge up the past. The moment she let her eyelids close, memories of Middle-School Clem played like a brain-movie in full technicolor: every panic attack and embarrassing episode.

_No,_ she told herself firmly. _This isn’t going to be like last time. I’ve had therapy. I’m better._

It would be fine.

xxx

“Oh, crap.”

Clementine flung back her sheets and stumbled to her desk chair where she’d draped her clothes. She was _positive_ she’d set an alarm for five o’clock. She’d wanted to have plenty of time to get ready. She was going to shower. She was going to double-check her backpack. She was going to _eat_ something. But Clementine must have turned her alarm off in her sleep, because it was just past seven.

Clem growled all the way to the bathroom and furiously wrestled her hair into braids. As she scrubbed her face and brushed her teeth, she calculated how much time she had to prep. It wasn’t much: school began promptly at 7:55 and she’d long-since missed the bus. Lee was gone off to work, himself—he couldn’t take her. Walking would take about thirty minutes if she went fast. Even if she left that second, Clementine was still going to be late on her first day.

“Crap!” She repeated to her reflection, spitting toothpaste.

Frazzled and sweating, Clementine burst from the bathroom and shoved her feet into her sneakers before realizing she hadn’t put socks on yet. She decided that she would just have to deal with the blisters and stumbled all the way down the stairs, backpack half-open and sending pencils plinking onto the hardwood, new notebooks scattering looseleaf papers around like fallen leaves.

_“CRAP!”_

A shadow appeared over her hunched body, and a somewhat concerned voice asked, “Need a ride?”

Clementine glanced up, eyes shimmering, to see Lee standing over her with his morning cup of coffee. She stared, still too groggy to put the pieces together.

“You’re...supposed to be at work,” she said sheepishly.

“Not till nine.”

Clementine could have melted into a puddle. “Oh,” she said.

Five minutes before the bell rang, Lee was pulling Clementine into the drop-off zone. She was finishing the last few bites of her breakfast bar, calmer than she’d begun the day. She was dressed, she was fed, she had all her belongings together. Now all she had to do was step into the building itself.

“You have everything?” Lee asked.

She nodded numbly.

“You’ll be fine,” Lee assured her.

This wasn’t going to be like last time. “Okay,” she said.

Clem could feel Lee watching her closely, as if she was about to crumble into dust if he so much as breathed. Though he had been in prison for the worst seasons of her mental illness, he had always supported her from afar with as much understanding as he could, she figured. He cared, of course, but Lee never pried too hard into her business. Sometimes Clementine appreciated that about Lee. Other times she almost wished he _would_ pry.

“I’m really proud of you, Clem,” Lee said after a minute of gripping the wheel. “At how you’re handling the move and everything. You’ve always been so adaptable, and I admire that.”

Clementine exhaled. The little red flag on the edge of her consciousness fluttered and went still. She couldn’t let him down, not when Lee thought her to be as strong as she was.

“Thanks, pop,” she said, and left the safety of the car to head inside.

The halls were filled with chatter that reverberated off the walls of lockers. Clem had thought herself late, but maybe she wasn’t the only person struggling to find her homeroom. Clem scanned the maze of hallways for room numbers, and bulletin boards covered in bright construction paper welcomed her to her First Day of School. She hardly had a moment to admire the smiling flower cut-outs before she was sliding into her homeroom. She took a seat near the back and wiped the sweat from her hairline. One class found. Seven more to go.

The morning passed in a whirlwind both frantic and dull. After only ten minutes sitting in homeroom, Clem was off in search for her History classroom (the opposite end of the building), followed by Chemistry (back near Homeroom), and finally Spanish I (a downstairs classroom with no natural light). In three hours, she had met three new teachers, had received three thick syllabi, and already had three new homework assignments. Lunch could not have come soon enough.

The lunchroom—located near the gyms on the bottom floor—was occupied by clusters of round tables, all packed with students. The scent of citrus cleaner mixed with melted cheese caused memories of all the Lunchrooms of Christmas Past to come flooding back. If there was one similarity between all the public schools, Clementine decided, it was the smell. The space was loud and too open, lit by fluorescents and windows too small and too high. Clem clung to the outer cement wall as she scoured the dining hall for an open seat. There was none to be found amongst the herds of kids, and frankly, she wasn’t keen on throwing herself into the throng. Clementine retraced her steps and took the stairs two at a time until she was back on the ground floor.

As she basked in the light of day and counted her breaths, Clementine’s eyes landed on a small sunset-painted lounge. There were a few scattered students occupying the colorful booths and bean bags, but a cozy circle of couches was left empty in the center. The echo of the lunchroom became more distant as Clementine sat herself down on the couch closest to the window. Safe.

“You’re in our spot.”

Clementine’s hand froze as she reached for her sandwich. She glanced up and was met with a scowl so prominent that she could see frown lines on the boy’s dark, youthful face.

“Uh,” Clem said. She wasn’t sure how else to respond to an accusation from a stranger.

“Leave the freshman alone, Aasim,” said another boy, one Clem recognized by his glaring haircut—the one that looked like a lawnmower had passed through the sides of it. Marlon. He looked at her for half a second before a polite smile broke over his round features. “Oh, hey. It’s Clementine, right?”

“Y...yeah.” She hadn’t remembered telling him her name. “And, uh, I’m not a freshman.”

Marlon didn’t seem to hear—or she’d been too quiet—and waved over the rest of his group. “Hey Louis, c’mere!” he shouted. “It’s the girl you killed at the carnival!"

Louis From The Carnival appeared rounding the corner, his rucksack slung over one shoulder. His lips curled into a grin as he noticed her, and she was both relieved and shell-shocked to be recognized. “Hey there, girl!” he said cheerily, then leaned over to Marlon and hissed, “Clearly, she’s very much alive, so I’d appreciate it if you’d stop telling people I killed someone this summer.”

Clementine found her voice and quipped, “For all you know, I could be a ghost.”

Louis squinted, then, reached out to give her shoulder a gentle poke. “Well, you make a very convincing human, O Spirit,” he said.

The rest of the friend group arrived and settled into the round of couches, digging out lunch bags and tearing open chips, conversations flying right over Clem’s head. There were five in all—and Clem tried not to let herself get too overwhelmed. Clem got a casual “hey” from Violet, and curious looks from the other kids she didn’t know. Clem ate and listened to them shoot the breeze for a few minutes. Aasim was staring in her direction. He was squinting. She was uncomfortable.

“Yes?” Clem asked.

“I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before,” he said. “You have a UTube channel or something?”

Violet chucked her balled-up paper bag at Aasim’s head. “Stop being a creeper,” she said. “He likes knowing things. Ignore him.” But Aasim continued to scrutinize Clem even after the scolding. She tried her best to ignore him, and instead focused her attention into making a mental list of the group:

There was Marlon: a junior on the football team, so a part of Clem wasn’t sure why he wasn’t eating lunch with the other jocks. The others would call him “dad” from time to time.

Then of course, there was Louis, also a junior. He spent most of the period cracking jokes and trying to get Marlon to take a bite of his Mystery-Sandwich (a multicolored concoction compiled of all the fixings the cafeteria food line had to offer).

Violet struck Clementine as a grumpy sort at first. She was in the same grade as Clem and sat on the arm of the sofa like an owl hunched on its perch. Then again, when one of the boys did something especially dumb—like, take a bite of the Mystery Sandwich kind of dumb—she gave Clem an eye roll. It felt like a silent pact was made.

Aasim, a sophomore, didn’t talk to Clementine directly again, but she noticed him shooting her occasional looks whenever he glanced up from his phone. Sometimes the others would throw bits of paper at him to get him to contribute to the conversation.

And lastly, there was a girl named Ruby, another sophomore. She had flaming red hair, freckles, and despite her letting out a cheery “bless your heart” every few minutes, she looked strong enough to crush a watermelon between her thighs if she wanted to.

The half-hour block for lunch passed in light conversation about who had what classes, annoying teachers, and lockers that got stuck at the worst possible moments. Clementine mostly listened as the others chatted comfortably, and she tried to push away the feeling of being an outsider. The group had willingly sat down with her—perhaps excluding Aasim—so maybe she was less out-of-place than she thought. At least she was somewhat hidden amongst the group, and could observe them without drawing attention to herself.

“Anyone have Rapp’s class?” asked Louis, mouth full of questionable sandwich. “I think I was so nervous in there that I forgot to grab a syllabus.”

“Lilly Rapp is stone-cold,” Marlon replied, tossing Louis a fat stack of papers so thick that they were held together with a binder clip. “Pray you guys don’t get her next year. She threw a kid out of the room today for chewing gum and I haven’t seen him for the rest of the day.”

“Oh, he’s dead, for sure,” Louis said. “You have a favorite teacher, Clem?”

Clementine could barely remember one teacher, let alone the four she’d met that morning. “No,” she said honestly, and Violet laughed.

“Just wait till you have math with Mr. Abel,” she said with a glint in her eye.

Ruby shuddered. “Ooh, that nasty bugger’s always walking around the room lookin’ down the girls’ tops, honest to Jesus.”

Aasim, who had been scrolling feverishly on his phone for the better part of lunch suddenly leapt to his feet. “Ah- _HA!”_ he declared, causing the rest of the group to jump at his outburst. “I _knew_ it!”

Ruby narrowed her eyes at him. “Everyone knows that, weirdo.”

“What? No, not the boob thing.” Aasim jutted his finger at Clementine, his eyes wide with satisfaction. “You! I knew I recognized you! You’re that girl—the one from the _Marsh House Murder_ story!”

Clem’s blood went cold. She used to spend the better part of her time shoving that memory deep, deep down into the mud of her brain. But even after dealing with the trauma left behind by the experience, it still wasn’t easy to look it in the face. Just _how_ did he dig up that years-old article?

Ignorant to her panicked silence, Aasim shoved the screen of his phone under his friend’s noses so they, too, could see the story with their own eyes. Clem was helpless to stop it, and just sat, hands clamped under her thighs.

“Don’t you see it?” Aasim pressed them all.

Louis squinted at the blue screen, eyes flicking to Clementine with recognition dawning on his features. She felt her skin itching as if she was under a spotlight, mutterings of recognition surrounding her like little flies buzzing.

Marlon let out a low whistle. “I remember this story blowing up the news,” he said, looking at Clementine. “That girl was seriously _you?”_

“Remember when all our parents suddenly thought that we’d all get kidnapped?” chimed Violet as she swiped the phone out of Louis’ hand and squinted at the screen. “They got super anal about curfews, too.”

“They thought we were going to get stolen and shot or something.”

“Wait, _you_ didn’t shoot him, right? It just says here there was ‘evidence of a struggle’ and _boom,_ the dude was dead.”

“No, it was some other guy who killed him. I think they locked him up, though.”

“Hey, y’all,” said Ruby quickly, “I think we’re makin’ her uncomfortable.”

Clementine—face burning crimson, she was sure—gathered her uneaten lunch with fumbling hands. “It’s fine,” she mumbled. It wasn’t fine. “I just...I need to go.”

She was only half-aware of someone protesting as she tripped over Aasim’s backpack in her haste to exit the room. 

xxx

Clementine awoke on Friday to a grey sky heavy with rain. She pulled up her hood before braving the light drizzle, her stomach churning uncomfortably with a mixture of anticipation and dread as she sat in the very back of the bus and did not make eye contact with anyone.

The first week of school had become more about survival than anything else. No matter how much her teachers had encouraged the students to sign up for clubs and activities and sports before all the slots were filled, Clementine couldn’t begin to even _think_ about tacking more onto her growing schedule. Not to mention, she had spent most of her energy avoiding Louis and his friends, which proved difficult because she definitely shared classes with a few of them. The whole school probably knew about her origins by this point—she could feel people staring in the classroom, she could catch the whispers in the hall. The last thing she wanted was a reminder of Savannah. She had come to Richmond to get _away_ from that.

As rain pelted the windowpanes of the classrooms, Clementine’s heart began hammering against her ribcage as though she had just sprinted up the stairs. She was almost surprised that no one could hear the pounding like a fist on a door. Her hands pulsed with every beat. Sweat gleamed on her palms.

A storm was coming, and with it surfaced the memory of Savannah.

When the first crack of thunder sounded, it sent an icy pang through Clementine’s temple, igniting her nerves with fire. It happened every time. Her instincts screamed _“DANGER”_ even though there was none to be found. Clementine tried to breathe deeply like she’d been taught, but the panic attack had gripped her and would not let go. She had to get _out._

Clem wasn’t completely aware of the bell signalling the end of class as she barrelled through the crowded halls, not seeing, all singular sounds blending together into a cacophony of noise. Some invisible force was squeezing her chest like a boa constrictor. Was she going to suffocate?

Trembling fingers brushing the walls to keep herself steady, Clementine turned a corner where the crowds were thin, and stumbled into the first dark classroom she saw. Thankfully, it was empty—a music room by the looks of it—but Clem didn’t have the capacity to notice the grand piano or the music lockers made of wood. She ducked underneath the choir bleachers, pulled her knees up against her chest, and let the dissociation wash over her senses, muffling sound and numbing her skin. Black spots danced on the edges of her vision.

“Clem?”

She was vaguely aware of someone saying her name, but she couldn’t pry her watering eyes off the floor.

“Are you...okay?”

She saw the tips of someone’s boots enter her circle of sight. The voice sounded like Louis’, minus the usual lilt of humor. “Shit...you don’t look okay.”

Clementine’s body was paralyzed. She was so scared. She couldn’t answer.

“Do you want me to...go?”

She jerked her head, no.

There was a rustle of fabric as he knelt down beside her. Torn jeans. Freckles. There was a brief heat as his hand hovered close. The hair on her arm stood up.

“Is it okay if, uh, if I touch you?”

She hesitated, then nodded. She felt a soft pressure on her back, a reassuring brush of fingertips. She breathed as she had practiced: in for seven seconds, held for five, and breathed out for eight. The rain pittered against the high windows. Thunder growled. Clementine’s breath came out jagged.

“Let’s play a game,” said Louis.

Clem wasn’t sure if she’d heard him correctly—it wouldn’t be the first time she’d heard things during an episode. But the gentle pats on her back were reassuring, like a separate heartbeat. She let him go on.

“You’re gonna name five things you see,” she heard him say. “Okay?”

Would her voice even work? Her throat felt tight. She swallowed. “Uh…” she began. It was a struggle to open her lips. “Knees...c-carpet...chair...pa...pers...piano...door.”

“Nice,” Louis replied. “Now, can you name four things you hear?”

Clementine blinked. The room had shifted into focus. She concentrated. “B-breath...rain...lights...uh...like, a wind? The air conditioning?”

Louis continued the game, asking her to name three things she felt (the floor, his hand, her shirt) followed by two things she smelled (chalk, spearmint gum). As she played, Clem’s senses broadened, her heart rate steadied, and her surroundings solidified.

Finally, Louis asked her to name one thing she tasted. “My spit,” she said, and actually smiled. She met his face for the first time—it didn’t feel overly-stimulating to look at him anymore. Louis gave a head-nod of approval and removed his hand from her shoulder, settling cross-legged beside her. They sat for a few unhurried minutes, to which she was grateful; she felt like she had just run a marathon. At one point, the bell rang, signalling the end of the period. Neither one of them moved, and no one else disturbed the classroom.

When Clementine’s heartbeat had returned to a more normal pace, she exhaled, and let the tension ease around her chest. “This, um, hasn’t happened for a while,” she said, voice hoarse. “Usually I just try to find a place to hide until it stops.”

Louis sank back onto his hands. He looked so at ease. “You know, Marlon used to get panic attacks too.”

“Really?” Out of everyone in the group, Marlon seemed the most put-together, at least from Clem’s perspective.

“Yeah. But, uh, don’t tell him I told you,” Louis said with a light chuckle. “He never gets them now, but back in middle school he’d get slammed out of nowhere, when he was triggered or whatever. We’d be talking, or he’d be at football practice, and then _wham._ So, I’d sit with him—in the corner of the gym, on the sidewalk, wherever it happened—until he rode it out. Anxiety’s a bitch.”

Clementine rested her chin on her knees. “Thunder always gets me,” she said, biting her lip on the sore spot. “I...I don’t like storms.”

Louis sat up fast. “Clem, you know, about lunch—about that whole Savannah thing—Aasim shouldn’t have brought that up. He feels like such a fuckhead.” His hand went to his furrowed brow. “Well, we all kind of do.”

She exhaled, grateful, but not ready to talk about it. When she didn’t respond right away, Louis anxiously went on, “What happened to you—I mean, that was _none_ of our business, and we shouldn’t have said a word about it, like of _course_ you didn’t want to talk about it, duh. We’re just idiots. Mostly Aasim. But also all of us.”

“It’s just something that happened,” she said. “I guess it was bound to come up sometime.”

Louis peeked over at her, lips pressed together as if afraid he was going to say something wrong. But Clem was glad for the forward-ness. It felt good to talk about it, at least a little bit.

“Well, if it’s any consolation, I think you’re badass,” he told her. “Not that it’s, uh, _good_ that it happened or anything. Obviously. But you’re still here, and that’s, uh, you know.” He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Badass.”

Clem pretended to cover a cough so he couldn’t see her blush. “Um, thanks for teaching me the game. It helped,” she said. “You’re good at talking me out of it.”

“Wow,” said Louis, grinning. “I can’t wait to tell the others that my babbling actually did some good for once. Take _that,_ Violet.”

With most of the period gone, the two decided to head up to lunch early. Clementine had never intentionally skipped a class before, and she tried not to feel too sick about it. Louis didn’t look worried in the slightest, and sauntered over to the ebony piano to grab his backpack.

“What were you doing in here, anyway?” Clementine asked as he buckled up his rucksack. “You know, before I busted in.”

“Tickling the ivories,” he said. When Clem wrinkled her nose, he laughed and prodded one of the piano keys with his finger. The high note rang through the space. “It doesn’t mean anything dirty, I promise. I don’t have a piano at home—not anymore, anyway—so I just practice on the one here.”

Clem hadn’t even heard him playing when she’d burst into the choir room. “You’ll have to play me something, sometime,” she said. “You have a favorite?”

Louis scrunched up his lips as though he was thinking hard. “There is one,” he said. Then, without warning, slammed his hands on the keys and bellowed,

_“Oh, my darlin,_

_oh my darlin’,_

_oh my daaaaarlin’ Clementine—!”_

Clem clapped her hands over her ears. “No!”

_"You are lost and gone forever,_

_Dreadful sorry, Clementiiiiiiine!”_

“Okay, I walked right into that one,” she said, but Louis kept playing. “Seriously, Louis, you can stop singing—”

_“Light she was and like a faaaaaairy—”_

“If you don’t stop, I’ll get my dad to beat you up.”

_"And her shooooooes were number nine—”_

“I’m leaving now,” Clem said through annoyed laughter, and made a beeline for the exit. Louis abandoned his spot at the piano and skipped along after her, belting out for the students in the hall to hear:

_“Herring boxes without topses,_

_Sandals were for Clementiiiiiiine!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((sorry for the extra long wait, new jobs and new things are kicking me in the butt, thanks for your patience))
> 
> ***a note on mental illness: i've used some of my own experience here to illustrate some side-effects of clem's trauma. panic attacks are kind of like you've been transported to the top of a building and you're suddenly looking down. the exercise louis guides clem through is one that i've used to help ground myself when the panic sets in.***
> 
> more notes:  
> -the Ericson kids are finally here (most of them, anyway) and i'm alive  
> -lilly and abel are the Evil Teachers now  
> -lee is trying very hard to be a good dad  
> -i just love these kids a lot can u tell  
> -this isn't a good way to Author's Note but i just have a lot of feelings for twdg and i love you all and hope you're doing well, thanks for reading.*


	5. War

It was a weekday, normally a day reserved for school, but Clementine was relaxing in front of the T.V. in her pajamas. Cartoons buzzed from the screen as she brushed toast crumbs from her mouth and slurped the last few drops of her vanilla-flavored coffee. Teacher conferences were happening, which meant no classes for the students. It also meant that Lee wasn’t home to tell her that she couldn’t drink said coffee, so Clementine had taken complete advantage of his absence and brewed herself a cup. Or two.

Normally, a day off from school came as a welcome relief. Clem’s workload had increased, what with the first set of tests right around the corner, and an extra day was just what she needed to study. But the thought of not going to school—of not seeing the gang at lunch—was almost disappointing. While she watched infomercials and tried to enjoy her morning off, Clem couldn’t stop glancing down at her phone to see if anyone had texted her. The only notifications she got from the group came from the group chat, and most of those just consisted of dumb memes. Besides the occasional video compilation or “Tag Yourself”, she had yet to hang out with the Ericson kids outside of school walls. 

Clem thought briefly about shooting a text to Louis or Violet, but did that look too desperate? She was the newest one to be introduced into the gang—she resided on the bottom rung of the ladder. There must have been rules about overstepping her boundaries, right? Or was she thinking too much?

As she went to the fridge to put the almost-empty bottle of creamer away, hands already jittering from the caffeine rush, Clem pushed aside a brown paper bag and frowned at it. Lee had left his lunch behind. A shame, since they had ordered amazing Pad Thai from the place around the corner the night before, and he had wanted to take the leftovers into work. 

Well, she wasn’t about to let Lee go lunchless. Fueled by resolve to do good—plus, she was hyped up on caffeine and itching to talk to a person—Clementine went to put on real clothes, stored Lee’s lunch in her backpack, and made sure to reset the house alarm before venturing into the sunny morning.

Clementine was a bus-riding master. Back in Macon, it was her primary source of transportation, seeing as how she didn’t have her driving permit yet. She had been eight years old when she rode a public bus by herself for the first time—not a smart move, but she’d done a lot of careless things back then. It wasn’t difficult to figure out where the closest bus terminal was, or to glance at the map to make sure the bus made a stop at the University of Richmond. Clementine paid her fare, popped in her earbuds, and in minutes she was hopping off at the UR campus. 

The river sparkled at her right as she ascended a set of stone steps, past clusters of older students who didn’t seem to notice her young appearance skipping by. The campus was green and lush and peaceful, it’s buildings stretching far into the trees. And she thought high school was big. Clem followed her feet, picking out landmarks she remembered from the last time she was here to help Lee move into his office. Finally, she spotted his lecture hall gleaming around the bend, its walls of windows reflecting the crystal blue sky. When she went inside, she easily located his office door (it was the one covered in sticky notes and a black and white print of Robert E. Lee captioned with _“Civil War jokes? I General Lee don’t find them funny”)_ , Clementine knocked.

“It’s me,” she called. “And I don’t appreciate the meme on your door.”

There was a _hmph_ of acknowledgement from the other side, and she let herself into the tiny office. Lee was leaning back in his desk chair, glasses resting low on his nose as he flipped distractedly through a stack of assignments.

“You can blame my students for that one,” he said. “Suffice it to say, they don’t call me ‘Professor’ anymore.”

Clementine smirked. “Can I call you ‘General Lee’ now, too?”

“No you may _not,”_ he said. “It’s Lee, Pop, or Professor to you, young lady.”

While Lee finished grading his students’ papers, Clementine took a moment to appreciate how homey the space already felt. The whiteboard calendar Clem had helped him pick out was already in use—almost every single day filled out with some appointment or lesson plan in green marker. Books were spilling off of his shelf, binders from his desk drawers, and he had both a desktop computer _and_ a laptop set up on its surface: the sign of a teacher on the go. Her Lee was organized at home, with his alphabetized DVDs and pristine collection of historic literature. But she didn’t mind the disarray of his office space. It held a nice, busy energy inside of it.

Sitting in the chair across his desk, she noticed the assortment of framed photographs set up on the bookshelf behind him—all were goofy shots Clementine, ranging from age nine onward. There she was squatting in the sandbox with dirt on her knees, there she was again with ice cream on her face, and again fast asleep and drooling on the new sofa (was that one taken last week?). Clem groaned when she saw the gallery, to which Lee only smiled under his beard. When he seemed finished grading and placed his pen back in its designated cup, he removed his reading glasses to give her his full attention.

“Did you reset the alarm before you left the house?”

“Yes, I reset the alarm,” she repeated with a tiny eye roll, and she could see Lee visibly relax. “Nice to see you too, Pop."

“It’s _always_ nice to see you,” he clarified. “I just thought you’d be at the park enjoying the weather today, or drinking all the coffee in the house.”

“Coffee at my age? Preposterous.” Clementine dropped the bag containing Lee’s lunch in front of him, and as she flourished her hands in a “ta-da” gesture, she nearly knocked over his desk lamp. “So I only had a _little bit,”_ she clarified.

He _mhm-_ ed, doubtful. “What about those friends of yours? You getting together with them?”

Clementine sighed. “I don’t know. They’re all probably busy. No one’s talked to me all day."

“Why don’t you reach out to one of them?”

Clem squirmed. “Because that’s...desperate. Besides, if they’re doing something without me, I don’t want to make things weird.”

She tried to ignore Lee’s chuckle at her expense. “You’re thinking too much,” he said. “I’m sure they’d love to hang out with you.”

Clem grumbled something incoherent, and busied herself by digging the tupperwares out from the bottom of the bag. She still wasn’t sure. What if they were only hanging out with her just to be polite? The lunch period wasn’t nearly long enough to get to know each member of the group. The only person she knew as more of an acquaintance was—

“What about that boy?”

Clementine clutched her fingers around a handful of napkins. “Wh...why are you saying it like that?”

“Like what? I’m not saying it weird,” Lee replied, too innocently. “You’ve just mentioned him a few times, so it’s natural for me to assume you’re _friends…”_

“Ahh stop saying it weird!” Clem snapped. “Can we please just eat?”

As they dug into the still-tasty leftovers of fried veggies and chicken, Lee stopped chewing and pursed his lips thoughtfully. Clem knew that look, and knew that a lecture was currently forming. She braced herself and, like clockwork, Lee spoke in a slightly serious tone. “So, you felt good coming here by yourself?” he asked. “You felt...safe?”

And all she wanted was a nice, drama-free lunch date with her father. She should have known he’d find something else to press her about. “I’ve taken the bus a thousand times,” she replied.

“I know,” he said slowly. She could tell he was biting back something by the way he clenched his jaw. “But I’d just...I’d feel better if you let me know when you’re coming and going.”

Clem popped a whole broccoli into her mouth. She’d heard this lecture before. “I was only ten minutes away,” she said, dishing him out another generous scoop of noodles on top of his unfinished pile.

“But you don’t know the area like you knew Macon.”

“Should I have just stayed at home all day, then?”

“Sweet pea.” The way he said it made her feel like a little kid again. “I know you’re responsible. But it would make me feel better if you would just do as I ask, and text me.”

She swallowed a mouthful of her food, hardly tasting it through her annoyance. “I don’t know why this is such a big deal.”

“And I don’t know why you’re making this more difficult than it needs to be.”

Before she could bite back a reply, the tension was cut by a light rap on the door. Clem looked up, and a woman was there with a smile almost too big for her face. 

“Hey there, Lee!” the woman said. It made Clementine wonder how long she’d stood there in the open doorway. “I wanted to drop off those notes you asked for!”

“Oh, uh, thanks, Karen,” Lee replied, clearly taken aback by the interruption. “There was no rush, though. I didn’t need them until Friday.”

The woman giggled, even though Clementine didn’t feel like Lee had said anything funny. “Oh, it was my pleasure!” Karen said with another jaw-busting grin. Lee held out his hand to take the file folders, but she didn’t relinquish her hold on them right away. Instead, she turned her laser-focus onto Clementine, who tried to sink into her chair. “And _this_ must be your daughter!" 

Clem tried to shoot Lee a signal, but he ignored it. “This is Clementine,” Lee answered politely.

The lady bent at the waist to meet her eye line. “I knew I just had to meet the famous daughter! And lookit how _cute!_ Your daddy talks about nothing else! What grade are you in?”

What Clem wanted was to tell the woman that she was fifteen, not five. Instead she said, “I’m a sophomore. At Ericson’s.”

The woman scrunched up her nose as though Clem was a squishy puppy and not a bristling teenager. “You know what, my daughter goes there, too! Do you know anyone named Brody?” Clementine shook her head, thankful that she didn’t know a soul by that name, thankful that she had no connection to this woman. 

Lee cleared his throat and held out a hand for the files again. “Well, thanks for bringing these over,” he said with a tad more force. “I’ll see you at the meeting.”

Karen’s eyes went to him, fluttering once. “Can’t wait!” she said. “It was _amazing_ to meet you, Clementine!”

Only when Clementine was certain the woman was out of the office and well out of earshot did she turn to Lee and say, “Is that my new mommy?”

Lee’s mouth opened. _“Clem!”_ he hissed, and was at the door in a flash to shut it quick.

“She was making goo-goo eyes at you,” Clem cackled through her fingers. “She _likes_ you.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “Anyway she’s...not my type.”

“She looks like the ‘type’ who would try to write you up if you said ‘no’ to a date,” Clem continued with a mouthful of bean sprouts. “You’d better let her ask you out.”

“Okay, that’s enough out of you,” he said with a grim smile. 

Clem returned the grin. Silence returned and sat thick between them. She fidgeted.

“Next time,” Clementine said, picking her words carefully, “I’ll text you. Okay?”

Lee, seeming satisfied, sank back down into his chair. “Good.”

On the bus ride home, Clementine reminded herself to shoot Lee an “I’m on my way home” type text. When that was done, she checked the group chat, and then her inbox for anything new.

Nothing. 

If no one had talked to her by now, she was certain it wasn’t going to happen. She cranked up her music and pushed away the images of Louis, Marlon, Violet, Ruby, Aasim, and all the others having fun without her.

xxx

Clementine had just retired to her bedroom for the night when her phone buzzed violently against her desk. Clementine lunged to snatch it off the wood and turned off the vibration, heart palpitating from the sudden noise. She’d gotten a text, but to her surprise, it wasn’t another meme from the group chat. The name on the screen told her that Louis had sent her a message. Her heart did a tiny flop. She quickly opened it.

**heyyy clementine what time is it??**

Clementine’s eyes flicked to the digital numbers nestled in the right corner of her phone screen. Ten-thirty. Late for a school night, but someone from the gang was texting her. _Louis_ was texting her.

 **You’re asking *me* what time it is? Your phone doesn’t have a clock?** she wrote back. Clementine climbed onto her bed and hunched over the glow of her phone, eyes fixed on the little dot-dot-dot that told her Louis was in mid-reply.

 **answer the question!!** he said.

 **is it bedtime?** she texted.

 **nope,** he said. **its FRIENDSHIP time.**

Clem snorted. **And what’s that mean?** she sent.

She waited for his response, but after a full minute of anticipation, none came. Clem tapped her foot impatiently on her quilt, eyes watering slightly from the brightness of her screen. Then, suddenly, another text:

**ur house is the one wit the blue door right?**

Clem blinked a few times to make sure she’d read it right, and before she had a chance to think of a response, something _plinked_ against her window. She put her phone down and crossed the wood floor, peeling back the curtain to see down into the front yard. Three dark figures stood there, looking up. As another pebble rushed the glass and _plinked_ against it, Clem opened the window a crack to call softly down, “Uh...Louis?”

“Oh good, right room,” she heard him say, voice flush with relief. Clem couldn’t imagine what would have happened if Louis had thrown rocks at Lee’s window. “C’mon girl. It’s prime time to do things.”

“Uh, what things?” Clem asked, trying to see who else was on the lawn, but all she could make out were vague silhouettes.

 _“Cooome downnn and fiiiiind ouuuut,”_   Louis warbled.

“Very scary, Lou,” came Marlon’s voice.

Clementine hesitated. It was late, she was sporting breakfast food-printed pajamas, and her wild hair was twisted in a dorky bun which sat on top of her head like a small bubble. It wasn’t exactly how she wanted to look the first time she was invited out by the friend group. Then again, she’d moped around all day wishing someone would open the conversation, and now it was happening.

Before she could change her mind, Clem hissed that she’d be down in a minute, and then launched herself at her dresser to find a slightly less-embarrassing outfit to be seen in. She tugged on a pair of jeans and pulled a plain, grey sweatshirt over her bacon-and-eggs-printed pajama top. She was thankful for the cover of darkness to hide the imperfections on her freshly washed face. As she tiptoed into the hallway, tactfully avoiding the board that squeaked, she stopped in front of Lee’s door and listened as his heavy snores drifted from the other side. 

Fast asleep. It would be a shame to wake him up, especially considering the fact that he would definitely _not_ allow her out of the house past bedtime.

After a motionless minute of indecision, Clementine quietly slipped down the stairs and went to set the alarm so she could sneak out without alerting the sleeping bear upstairs. She reasoned that if he awoke—and that was a big “if”, since he’d been known to sleep through thunderstorms—he would text her, and she’d assure him of her safety. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

When the door was securely locked behind her, Clem realized her hair was still in its’ bedtime bun. Before approaching the group, she ripped out her hair tie and ran her fingers frantically through the curls.

“Hey, Marlon, hey, Violet,” she greeted, eyes watering.

“Hiya, Clem,” said Violet with a small salute. “Ready to get wild?”

 _No._ “Sure.”

“She’s up for anything. I like that,” noted Marlon. “Well, I hope you’re prepared to break all the rules, new girl. You’re in with the bad kids, now. You know what that means, right?”

Clem swallowed. They weren’t going to like...vandalize something, were they?

Louis held his phone light up to his face, probably an attempt to look menacing. “We’re going to stay up late, _on a schoooool niiiiight!”_

Scattered chuckles. Clem relaxed.

“Lead the way, then,” she said, and followed the gang through the cool of the lawn, off the sidewalk, and down the path that dipped down into the direction of the park. The sky was peppered with stars, creating a dim path for four pairs of feet thumping softly towards the playground. It would have been creepy coming here alone, Clem thought, with the swing chains clinking in the breeze and the merry-go-round creaking in the dark. But the hum of light conversation made the empty playground feel almost welcoming. Violet plopped herself onto a swing and gave her legs a few lazy pumps. Clem sat beside her, mostly because she didn’t know what else to do with herself, and kicked off her shoes to feel the cool grass blades between her toes. Louis was trying to climb the side of the swing set, but kept sliding down the metal pole with intrusive scraping noises.

She felt...free.

“Think fast,” said Marlon, and tossed something at Clementine. She caught it clumsily, and could feel the rigid edges of a cookie. The air filled with something sweet as the four began to chomp down on the cream-filled Oreos, Marlon giving them out from somewhere in his bag.

“Now,” he said after a solid minute of munching. “You’re all probably wondering why I called this meeting.”

“A...meeting?” Clem asked.

“It’s a meeting...of war,” Louis said dramatically, and flashed one of his hands to reveal a battered deck of cards. He shuffled it deftly without breaking eye contact with the circle. “The oldest game around. A game played by man and beast alike. The only game there is.”

Clementine moved from her perch on the swing to join the others on the grass. “How do you play?” she asked.

“It’s easy,” Violet said, following her lead to complete the circle. “Everyone gets a stack of cards, everyone flips one over. Highest card wins.”

“And,” continued Louis with a smirk, “the winner gets to ask Clem a question.”

Clementine’s heart caught somewhere in her throat. In response to her look of disdain, Louis shuffled with a tad more defense. “What?” he said. “I want to get to know you. Well, we _all_ do.”

Marlon smiled his assent. So did Violet. Clementine sighed. She realized that perhaps this was why she hadn’t heard from anyone all day, and felt rather sheepish for thinking she was intentionally being left out.

“Okay,” she said, shifting uncomfortably in the spotlight. “But if I win, I get to ask one of _you_ a question.”

“It’s only fair,” Marlon said. “Deal us in, Lou.”

On the first flip, Violet won with the Queen of Hearts. She made a satisfied sound and was quick to ask her question. “So, Clem,” she said, “that thing that happened in Savannah…”

“Hold on,” Louis interjected, his anxious eyes landing on Clem’s. He was the only one who knew how she felt about that particular story, but she should have known the subject would be breached eventually.

“I just want everything cleared up!” Violet retorted. “Look, I’m sorry Aasim was a dumbass and dug up that shit about your past and everything. That sucked. But it’s not like we’re judging you, and I figured now that we all know anyway, if you’re down to share…"

“She doesn’t have to share anything she doesn’t want to,” Louis said.

“And what do _you_ know about it?” Violet shot back. “Maybe she _does_ want to, and you’re just making the decision for her.”

“It’s okay,” said Clem, stopping the argument before it had a chance to ignite. She wasn’t going to make friends unless she was willing to open up, at least a little. Louis was completely understanding when she had told him about her panic attacks. Maybe his friends would be the same. Clem turned back to Violet. “What do you want to know?”

Violet looked almost surprised at Clem’s compliance. “Okay, so...your dad. Did he _really_ kill that guy who kidnapped you?”

Clem took a steadying breath. “Yes,” she said. “He did it to protect me.”

A hush fell over the circle, punctured only by Louis’ reverent, “Badass.”

“And they put him in jail for that?” Violet asked. Clem affirmed, and Violet scoffed. “That’s messed up.”

“Just for a few years,” Clem said. “And they were pretty hard ones. But now we’re together again. Didn’t think that was going to happen, honestly.”

Supportive looks from the group. Clementine felt the tension in her chest ease. Marlon signaled for another round and came out on top with a King.

“All right, here’s an easier one,” he said, voice light. “You miss Georgia at all? Or do you feel like you’re settling into Richmond okay?”

“What a sensible question,” Louis chimed. “Right after ‘did your dad kill a man’?”

Clem pursed her lips. “A little,” she said. “I miss my foster parents, but we stay connected. The new house is a lot more open than our old one.” She decided not to mention how relieved she was not to be in a town full of ghosts and bad memories anymore. 

When she didn’t go on, they flipped again. At last, Clem’s Seven of Hearts just managed to beat the rest.

“Okay, let me think…” Clem had a thousand questions for the group, but kept things safe by asking, “How long have you guys been friends?”

“You’re throwing us an easy one there, Clem,” Marlon said.

“I’m saving the _real_ nasty ones for when we’ve had more cookies,” Clem joked. She snorted as Louis made a big deal of digging into his bag to extract yet another box of Oreos, as though eager to get the nasty questions going.

“Lou and I lived on the same street growing up,” said Marlon, handing out a six-pack of sodas. He opened his can of root beer so it spritzed the circle.

“And we’ve been forced into friendship ever since,” finished Louis. “I think we met Violet next—in middle school, right? She was totally Miss I-Only-Shop-At-Goth Topic back then—” Louis yelped as Violet pelted his face with an Oreo devoid of filling, the cookies all licked clean.

“Oh _yeah?”_ Violet snarled. “Well, how about you, Mister All-The-Teachers-Wanted-To-Trade-Me-For-A-New-Student-Because-I-Never-Shut-Up-In-Their-Class, huh?”

Louis tossed back her sticky Oreo remnants, frowning deeply at the lack of cream. “Sacrilegious,” he commented gravely.

“I don’t really know how we met the others,” said Marlon. “Classes, parties, bonding over hating teachers, that sort of thing. It’s hard to pin down.”

“And the rest is history,” concluded Louis, reaching over to give Violet a firm pat on the head, to which she expertly dodged, not without a bemused grin.

The game continued well into the eve, and the more questions were asked, the more they flew without inhibition.

Clem asked Violet what the last thing she searched for on her phone was. Answer: “how many babies do octopusses have?”

Violet asked Clem which one of the three would most likely die in the apocalypse first. Fighting between being honest or diplomatic, Clem said her honest guess was Louis. Everyone heartily agreed, even him.

Clem asked Marlon what was wrong with his haircut. Violet flat-out laughed, and Marlon said that there was _nothing_ wrong with his haircut.

And then, on Louis’ turn, he asked if Clem ever had a boyfriend.

“Oh my _god,”_ groaned Violet.

“It’s a perfectly valid question!” said Louis. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can ask if _I’ve_ ever had a girlfriend. I haven’t, by the way.”

“Oh, I bet she’s real surprised about that.”

Clementine rapidly shook her head. “Uh, no,” she said. “No boyfriend.” She was relieved when the subject was dropped to make room for another round.

When the cookies were gone and their hands were almost empty of cards, the quiet firefly-lit night was interrupted by a short choir of notification chimes. Marlon, Violet, and Louis all reached into their respective pockets and dug our their phones. Clem could see their varying expressions in the glows of their screens.

“Fucking Aasim and his memes,” Violet muttered. “Doesn’t that gremlin boy ever sleep?”

“Tag yourself!” said Louis. “I’m ‘easy peasy’.”

Clem patted her jeans’ pockets. Why hadn’t her phone gone off? Just how late was it? “Crap...I can’t find my phone.”

“Did you drop it?” asked Marlon, and the light he flashed from his cell blinded her for a second.

“No, I...I think I left it on my bed.” _When I fumbling around like an idiot changing out of my pajamas._ “What time is it?”

“After midnight.”

Clementine leapt to her feet. “I’m sorry, guys, but I...I need to get home. Now.”

“Your dad a stickler or something?” asked Violet, moving out of the way as Clementine grabbed up her shoes.

“Something like that.”

Louis scooped up his deck of cards from the grass and shoved them into his pocket. “We’ll take you,” he assured her.

As the gang hurried back up the hill to civilization, Clem lagged a few steps behind to make _certain_ she didn’t have her phone somewhere buried in a forgotten pocket. When the bottoms of their shoes touched pavement again, Louis fell back. His shoulder brushed against hers as he said in a comforting sort of undertone, “I’m sure your dad didn’t even know you were gone. Bet he’s still asleep.”

Clem bit her bottom lip. “Maybe,” she mumbled.

“My parents sleep like the dead,” Marlon called back.

“Don’t worry about the phone,” said Violet with an assured nod. “If you texted him and woke him up, then you’d _really_ be in trouble.”

Maybe she was right. And it wasn’t like Clementine was gone long, anyway. She could slip inside as easily as she’d left, set the alarm behind her, and all would be well.

Clementine was feeling much more confident as they rounded the last bend of the neighborhood. But her glimmer of hope was quickly snuffed out as her house came into view: every light was lit from the inside so it poured from every window. In a neighborhood of dark houses, hers glowed like a beacon in the night.

Lee was awake, and worse, he knew she was gone.

xxx

Clem sent the gang away before they could walk her to the porch—it was better to spare them from whatever was coming next. As Louis, Marlon, and Violet disappeared down the street, they gave her looks as though they’d never see her again.

Clementine froze as she came to the front door, inching her feet out of the light streaming out from underneath. Her heart hammered in her chest as she picked out a voice from the other side. Lee was talking, and he sounded frantic. Clementine pushed open the door.

“It’s me!” she called.

The voice suddenly stopped. A pause. A sound like scuffling footsteps from the kitchen, then, Lee appeared. His deep brown eyes looked shallow, bloodshot, and his cell phone sat clutched in his hand, his fingers hovering over the keypad. Clem stood in the tunnel of his stare, petrified. She’d seen that look once before. He looked like he was seeing a ghost.

 _“Mr. Everett? Would you still like us to send someone over?”_ came a disembodied voice. Clem’s horrified gaze fell to his phone. He shook himself out of his daze and lifted the receiver to his ear.

“Uh, no...no, she just walked in,” he said hoarsely. Shame rose hot in Clem’s cheeks as he thanked the officer and hung up.

“Clementine,” he said at last. “Where have you been?”

She swallowed against the dryness coating her throat. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “My friends, um, came over and they invited me to go to the park and I just, uh, forgot to tell you.”

Lee’s bewildered eyes finally blinked. “You went...out. Do you know what...what time it is?”

“Y-yes,” she said. “It’s, uh, late.”

“When I saw you were gone, I tried calling but...your phone…”

“I know, I left it by accident.”

Lee’s phone-arm fell limply to his side. “I thought...I thought something had...happened.”

She winced. “Nothing happened. I’m okay. See?”

He looked her up and down. Movement crept back into his jaw, and he said in a low, dangerous tone, “I called the _police,_ Clementine.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” she began, but balked as he glared. “I said I was sorry.”

“No, this is not something you can just say ‘sorry’ for, young lady,” he said. “Of all the irresponsible—I had no idea where you’d gone or who you were with or what you were doing. Do you know what that’s like? I thought the _worst!_ I thought someone had come in here and—”

“It's not like I was kidnapped or anything!” she blurted, and knew immediately that it was the wrong thing to say.

“Don’t you _ever—”_

“Well, it’s true!” Clem went on, unable to stop the tumble of words. “This wasn’t like...like last time. I was with a group. I was _safe.”_

“I told you to let me know where you were, and you disobeyed me!” Lee roared back. “You. Are. Grounded.”

“I’m _what?”_ Lee had never, ever, grounded her before.

“Give me your phone,” he ordered. “And the only time you leave this house is for school.”

“I said it was an accident! I said I was sorry, like, a hundred times!”

“It was stupid!”

 _“This_ is stupid!”

Clementine slammed her phone down onto the coffee table, turned on her heel, and barreled up the stairs. Hot tears rested in her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall until she was safely locked in her room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> never wake a sleeping bear.
> 
> i've been in the midst of career stuff all summer long, so i'm just happy i can get a chapter out now and again. as always, thank you for sticking with it as i work at my snail's pace. i love writing it too much to stop, even if i can't update as frequently as i'd like. here's a nice, long chapter for you <3


	6. Blue Suburbia

It was a dreary day for a pep rally. Clementine winced with every step as the sopping grass seeped through the cracks in her shoes and soaked her socks. The wet air sent her shivering through her sweatshirt as she followed her class single-file towards the football field. The bleachers gleamed like a beacon in the mist, and Clem would not have noticed the gang if Louis wasn’t waving himself around at the top, like one of those inflatable guys in front of a car dealership, she thought.

“Woohoo! Go _football!_ Go _Marlon!”_ he was shouting from the topmost bleacher, wiggling his raincoat in the wind and receiving looks of both amusement and irritation. As Clementine’s class broke out of configuration, she slipped up the metal stairs to join Louis, Violet, Aasim, and Ruby perched against the grey sky. 

“Keep waving, Louis, I don’t think she saw you,” said Violet, scooting over to make room. Clem took care to sit on the edge of her jacket to avoid getting her butt wet, but she still felt dew soaking through her jeans.

“I had to do _some_ thing to get her up here,” Louis replied, then gave Clem a hopeful kind of pout, “unless, perhaps, she got the group text?”

Clementine opened her empty hands to show them that she had no phone to receive said texts, and her bench mates groaned on her behalf.

“Your dad _still_ has your phone under lockdown?” asked Aasim, craning his neck around as if to see if she was hiding it somewhere. “It’s been, what, almost a week? That’s kind of ludicrous, considering he needs to know where you are all the damn time.”

“If he’s gonna play prison warden, he should just keep you home from school.” Louis nudged her. “Since your friends are such bad influences.”

Clementine laughed along, but she knew if Lee would keep her in his sights 24-7, he probably would. She still found it stupid that he felt the need to take her phone away—what if she got kidnapped? What if she fell off a cliff? She guessed that confiscating her cell was a power move. Like a _if-you’re-not-at-school-then-you’re-on-the-bus-or-already-home_ \- _and-if-you’re-not-there’s-gonna-be-trouble_ kind of power move.

Still stupid.

Clem hadn’t even properly spoken to Lee since the night she came home late. Nothing more than grunts of acknowledgement passed her lips when she came to and from school. She hadn’t even come downstairs for dinner—she hated feeling the heat of his glare whenever she passed. It was better to survive on snacks in her room than it was to spend more than a minute in his fuming presence.

Clementine inhaled the wet air so the spice stung her nostrils. She’d never noticed how good the air smelled, or how nice it was to sit in the midst of a crowd, or how alive she felt shivering in the October chill. Clem observed the muddy football field peppered with blue-and-gold clad cheerleaders and jersey-sporting football players, trying to picture how much bigger the Homecoming game would look like on Friday. The team’s coach wore shorts and a windbreaker, and sported a Wolves’ cap on his square head. He was short but stocky, like someone had stuck a taller man into a compressor until he was nothing but muscles. Though he stood a head shorter than most of the players on his team, he was someone Clementine hoped she would never cross paths with. Every time he opened his mouth to shout commands, the bleachers shook with the angry bellow of his voice.

“There’s our dad!” Louis announced, pointing down at the field where the football players were huddled. “Hey, Dad, up here! _DAD, YOU’RE NOT WATCHING!”_

A few surrounding students glanced up in confusion, including Clementine. Did Louis _want_ the coach to murder him?

“Hey, Number 23, get a haircut!” Ruby chimed.

“That’s why Mom left you!” called Violet.

“Daaaaad!” wailed Aasim.

Clementine relaxed when, not the coach, but Marlon raised his ruddy face to look over at their section of the bleachers. When he noticed their clump, he grinned, checked to see if coach was watching, and flashed them a middle finger.

The thought of being cooped up in her room eating Goldfish crackers while her friends were taunting Marlon at the game made Clementine feel exponentially more somber.

The bleachers soon filled with bodies, and the band struck up a drumbeat. As the cheerleaders pranced around in the mud—a fact Violet was snickering over—Aasim leaned back behind Clem’s head to hiss, “Lou, has anyone talked to you about party location yet?” 

“Not decisively,” Louis replied. “Marlon says he’ll let us know tonight. He says his girlfriend’s got an empty this weekend, so that’s a possibility.”

“Thank god for party,” Violet cut in. “If the Homecoming dance was the only option, I’d have to fling myself out window.”

Aasim sniffed. “You’re not a junior. Party’s for upperclassmen only.”

All Aasim got in response was a chorus of laughs and hair-ruffle from Ruby.

“So you’re all coming, right?” Louis asked. “Right after the game tomorrow. We skip the lame, school-approved dance and rave like it’s 1999, or something.”

Clementine hoped no one would notice she was the only one not nodding. Failure. “Still grounded. I can’t.”

Uproarious protests.

“Just sneak out! Come on, it’s Homecoming, and it’s tradition,” Violet said. “Tell your dad to kiss your ass.”

“It ain’t gonna be the same without you,” Ruby said. “We sophomore-softies gotta stick together.”

“Come _on!”_ urged Louis. “We play games and do pranks and someone brings the kegs, and if things get especially crazy, we do crimes! Fun ones, not the super-illegal kind.”

Clementine swallowed the warm, fuzzy feeling of being included and said, “Just have fun in my honor, okay?”

“We’ll have much _less_ fun if you’re not there,” Violet said. “So thanks for nothing.”

The cheerleaders did their best to get the students out of their seats and to join them in the Wolves’ fight song. They shouted and leapt and rustled their blue-and-gold pom-poms with exuberance, but it was far too early for the student body to give any extra shits. The only time Clem and the gang rose to cheer was when Marlon’s name came up over the loudspeakers. Otherwise, they huddled together against the wind and rain and whispered about how Mr. Abel was probably trying to look up the cheerleaders’ skirts. This conversation instantly yucked the girls out, and they spent the remainder of the hour trying to hide from Mr. Abel under Louis’ enormous raincoat.

“My pits smell okay?” Louis snarked, raising his arms that much higher to create a canopy of coat. Repelled, Violet removed herself from under his shelter, huddling instead near Ruby and Aasim’s side of the bench. Clem stayed where she was. She thought he smelled fine. In fact, he smelled like cinnamon gum, and a hint of wood smoke that clung to the fibers of his honey-colored sweater.

“You good? With the rain?” Louis asked her in an undertone, voice treading lightly. “I haven’t, uh, heard any thunder yet, but if you’re feeling...you can borrow my headphones if you want.”

Clementine’s head buzzed with the memory of her panic attack in the choir room. Louis was looking out for her. She wasn’t sure if the fact comforted or embarrassed her. “Rain’s all right,” she mumbled.

He let go of the edge of his raincoat so it flopped on her head. “I was just joking about the crimes, by the way. We don’t do much of those at the party, if that’s a factor,” he said, then added, “It’ll suck without you there.”

“No it won’t,” Clementine replied. “The rest of the gang’s going. You’re still going to have a good time.”

Louis shook his head “no”, intentionally spraying her with rainwater from his dreads. “You’re probably the only person in the gang who hasn’t told me to shut up yet.”

She pretended to scratch her mouth to hide her ever-growing grin. “Is that the only criteria for friendship?”

“No, but it helps.” Louis leaned back on his hands, amber eyes flicking sideways at her. “You’ve gotta come,” he said decisively. “I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, because…”

She waited for him to go on, but he was lingering, mouth hanging slightly open as if stumped on a question. Clem pressed, “Because…?”

They were interrupted by the blaring of the band over the speakers, as another round of the fight song had gone up again. She never got a chance to revisit her exchange with Louis, but she didn’t need to. It would only make her feel worse for not being able to go.

At least there was one good thing that came out of a mandatory pep rally, Clem thought. A taste of the Homecoming game with her friends would have to replace the actual one. She found herself actually feeling disappointed when it was time to head back into the warm building. She waved a sad goodbye to the others and fell into line for Spanish class.

xxx

“No. Nononono _no.”_

Clementine screeched to a halt at the edge of the asphalt, mouth filling with the bitter taste of exhaust as the last school bus revved away. It was Mr. Abel’s fault for keeping her after class to go over her crap quiz score. She was royally screwed.

Clem looked wildly around for a solution. She would have to leave that very minute if she wanted to get home at Lee’s appointed time. The last thing she wanted was to use a school phone to call Lee and let him know she’d be home late. She didn’t want to tear open their still-tender situation. As Clem scanned the student parking lots to her left, she caught a flash of white-blonde hair and a blue-and-gold letter jacket. Even from this distance, she knew who that haircut was attached to.

“Marlon!” she called, jogging over. 

Marlon looked up from the door of a cobalt blue car, and it only took him one moment to piece together that she was desperate.

“Need a lift?” he asked, and she nodded gratefully. “Get in, then. I’ve got a bit before practice, and before Coach sends out a search party for me.”

The ride in Marlon’s sports car was smooth and fast on the winding dirt roads behind the school. Clementine wasn’t surprised. The car seemed brand-new with its sleek grey interior and a radio she thought looked too expensive to touch. She could feel the rock music pounding through the leather seats.

“You guys practice in the rain?” Clementine asked, more to make conversation than anything else.

“Rain, snow, sleet, or hail,” Marlon recited. It had begun drizzling again. He flipped on the wipers. “Though most of the time it’s just rain.”

Clementine leaned her forehead against the cool window. “Huh.”

As silence settled on the inside of the car, it dawned on Clementine that she had never had one-on-one time with Marlon before. For all the weeks she’d known him as part of the friend group, it occured that she knew very little about him. She hadn’t seen him at lunch lately, and whenever she passed him in the halls, he looked as though he was late for something. Even in the car he gripped the wheel and leaned slightly forward.

“Are you sure I’m not keeping you from practice?” Clem asked tentatively. 

He jumped, as if only just realizing that she was there. “Huh? No way, you’re fine. It’s nice to get out for a minute, anyway. Coach always gets crazy around gametime.” He paused. “Which is most times, but still.”

The tension broken, Marlon loosened his fingers on the wheel and quipped, “So, how’s the grounding going?”

Clementine let out a long, melodramatic groan. “It’s going _great,”_ she said.

Marlon chuckled. “Your dad still mad? Then you’d better mentally prepare yourself for a stern lecture when you get home.”

Clem dragged one finger against the window to make an absentminded trail. “I don’t think Lee’s actually ever grounded me before,” she admitted. “How long does it usually last?”

“Really? Never grounded?” Did she look like the type who got in trouble often? “Uh, I guess it depends how badly you pissed him off.”

Clem puffed her cheeks. “So I’m the only one who got grounded for staying out late last week, huh? No one else’s parents cared?”

“Well, Louis has the house to himself most nights—his parents do a lot of trips—and Violet’s mom usually works late, I think.”

That sounded...lonely. “What about you?”

Marlon snorted. “Oh, trust me, if I’d gotten caught, my dad would’ve smacked me around like a wet towel. I’m lucky Coach takes sleeping pills.”

Clem raised her head. “Uh, ‘Coach’?”

“My dad.”

Clem knew less about her schoolmates than she thought. “That’s...uh…”

Marlon smiled grimly. “So I get what you mean about your parents caring too much about what you do and don’t do. It’s like being inside a pressure cooker, sometimes.”

Clementine nodded, although she couldn’t imagine how intense it would have been to have a coach scream at her all day and then have to come home to that, too. No wonder Marlon looked on edge. 

“Oh, turn here,” she told him, interrupting her own thoughts to direct Marlon into her neighborhood. He coasted down the street and stopped a few houses away from the one on the end. The pit in her stomach grew.

“So I’ll see you at the party, right?” Marlon asked.

Clementine didn’t meet his eyes as she shouldered her book bag. “I can’t.”

“Your dad won’t let you?”

She shrugged lamely. Marlon extended his fingers and turned the volume dial on the radio down, plunging the car into a pod-like quiet. 

“I’m already getting a lecture when I get home,” Clem told him, half-joking.

Marlon furrowed his brow in such a way that was so dad-like, Clementine was almost impressed. “Here’s the thing, Clem,” he said, more serious. “Our parents, our coaches, teachers—most adults, really—they _love_ telling us what to do. Like, to them, we probably look like a bunch of dipshits running around with our heads cut off.”

Clementine listened, still unsure where he was going with this.

“And I get it. We’re still young. We don’t have our lives perfectly together. But sometimes instead of _helping_ us, adults will try to shove us into a mold we don’t fit into, or push us harder, or punish us without giving a good reason for it. Just because they can.” Marlon grasped the gear shift so hard that his knuckles looked like they were going to burst from his skin. “But you know what happens to someone inside of a pressure cooker? Eventually, something’s gonna blow.”

Marlon’s eyes were elsewhere, looking beyond the rain-spattered windshield.

“I know Louis told you about my anxiety shit,” he said after a moment. When Clem opened her mouth to retort, he continued quickly, “No, it’s cool, it means you get me. My dad doesn’t even know. Mom’s kept it from him because he’d blow his top if he knew his star player was ‘handicapped’, y’know?”

“Geez, Marlon,” she said on an exhale. “That’s...I’m sorry.”

“But this is what I’m saying,” Marlon went on, more fervently. “You don’t need to keep being reminded of that bad thing that happened to you. Trust me, staying cooped up will do that. You need to surround yourself with people who _get_ you, people who you can blow off steam with once in a while. Your friends.” He looked her in the face at last, his pale blue eyes back from wherever they’d gone. “Make sense?”

By the time he’d finished, Clem had covered the fogged-up window in squiggles and doodles. She _hmed_ thoughtfully. “Now I know why they all call you ‘Dad’.”

Marlon leaned back in his seat, one hand dragging down his tired-looking face. But he was smiling. “What am I gonna do about you kids?” he said under his breath. “Can’t focus for two minutes.”

Clem allowed herself to laugh at his expense. She got it, though. At least, she thought she did. Marlon at least understood where she was coming from, and what he’d said made sense. But Lee would never let her go to some party, even if he raised the punishment before then. She didn’t want to think about his reaction if she so much as asked.

xxx

Not wanting to keep him from practice, Clementine thanked Marlon for the ride and watched his sports car speed down the block, a blur of neon cutting through the grey mist. Her mind spun with their conversation as she splashed up to their front door and let herself in as tentatively as a burglar in a museum.

“Clementine?”

Clem jumped at the bark of Lee’s voice from the study. He emerged a second later to lock her in his sights. She felt like a cockroach pinned under a flashlight beam. Thankfully, it looked like he was on the phone, and he spoke into the receiver while still keeping Clem in sight. _“No, no, I’m right here,”_ he said, then turned back to her to hiss, “Where’ve you been? It’s after four.”

Clementine bit back a hot retort, and instead said a terse, “Nowhere.”

She was lucky he was already in the middle of another exchange, otherwise he’d have taken her to the cleaners.

_“Yes, she’s here, Christa,”_ said Lee. Clementine stepped forward, palm raised with expectancy. A chat with Christa was just what she needed to sort through her tangled web of thoughts. But Lee didn’t budge. _“No, she can’t talk at the moment.”_

“Let me talk to her,” Clem insisted.

“You know the rules,” Lee replied. “No phones.”

Clementine balled her hands into fists and gave him the dirtiest look she could muster. And yet another way he was keeping her from the outside. “Until when? Are you just going to keep me bottled up forever?”

Lee frowned dangerously. _“I’ll have to call you back, Christa,”_ he said, and hung up, but Clementine was already heading towards the staircase. She didn’t want another argument. She couldn’t stand being the focus of his scrutiny for one second longer.

“Clem, wait,” Lee called. Clementine froze on the middle step, and Lee came to the base of the staircase, but no further. At least she had the high ground this time, in case she had to do battle.

“What?” she said.

Lee stood very still, brow furrowed in that dad-like way. He took off his dark-framed glasses—the ones she always associated “Professor Everett” with—and folded them in his hand. “I just want to talk.”

Clementine crossed her arms. “About what?”

“I just want to see how things are going. I haven’t talked to you all week.”

He wasn’t meeting her level of bite, and his calmness was starting to annoy her. “Wonder why,” she said. “Maybe I don’t really feel like being belittled every time I open my mouth.”

His sigh sounded tired. “I’m sorry if I made you feel that way. But you have to know that I’m just trying to protect you.”

She shifted her feet, her wet shoes already starting to leave a puddle on the wood. “I should go change,” she said.

He shook his head. “No, we’re doing this now.”

Clementine grumbled and slid her backpack straps off of her shoulders. Her bag _thumped_ beside her. Lecture time.

Lee placed his one hand on the banister, brown eyes trying to meet hers. She wouldn’t let them. “I haven’t really grounded someone before, and I...I admit, I might have overreacted a bit,” he said slowly. Clementine stole a glance through her lashes. “But honey, you really scared me. Sometimes people overreact when they’re scared. It felt like...I don’t know, like Savannah all over again.”

Clementine felt shame trickling through her tightly-woven tension. It was hard to see her unshakable Lee slump with the memory.

“I don’t like this... _thing_ between us,” Lee went on. “Do you?”

“No,” she admitted, and hope rose its head in her chest.

Lee tapped the wood of the banister. “Then we have to _talk_ to each other. No more of this sneaking around. If you’re upset, I want to hear about it. And I want us to have meals together— I’d like to see you at least once in a while. Fair?”

Maybe Marlon was wrong. Maybe Lee was different than Marlon’s dad, and willing to treat her like an adult that could make her own decisions. “Yeah, okay.”

“Good.”

They stood there perched on the staircase for another minute, Clem wondering if this meant she was still technically grounded. Could she have her phone back? She at least summoned her courage enough to say, “I was wondering then...the homecoming game is tomorrow night, and my friend Marlon’s playing. We all want to go and support him.”

Lee considered this. “I’ll think about it.”

She let out the breath she’d been holding, and braced herself for Part Two of her question. “And...and there’s a party after,” she continued, choosing her words carefully. “So...if it’s okay for me to stay out a little later than usual…?”

Unfortunately for her, Lee didn’t skip a beat. “Who’s hosting?” he asked immediately.

She had hoped he wouldn’t ask too many questions. “Um...the juniors and seniors, I think?”

It was the wrong answer. She deflated as Lee removed his grip from the railing and gave her a flat, “No.”

She couldn’t help but bristle. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t like what goes on at those things,” he replied coolly.

Everything they had tried to fix over the last few minutes suddenly slipped and shattered again like a glass on hardwood. “What do you mean ‘what goes on’?”

“I have students who go to these types of parties, Clem,” said Lee. “I hear a lot of things I don’t want to.”

“That’s _college,_ not high school!” she said with exasperation. It was like talking to an immovable wall. “I’m not going to do anything, you know, dumb. Have you _met_ me?”

He ignored her question. “What would your therapist say if I told her I was letting you go to an unchaperoned party? Probably one with underage drinking?”

Clem rolled her eyes. “I don’t even see her anymore. I’m _better.”_ Lee gave her a skeptical sort of look. It made her blood boil. “And you keeping me here is just a constant reminder that I went crazy!”

“You never ‘went crazy’,” replied Lee. She almost wished he would shout back. What was with this Ice King treatment? “You just process things differently. A party is the last place I want you.”

Clem pulled the ends of her short braids in frustration. She didn’t need a doctor, or a lecture, or a parent spitting emotionless facts in her face. “You won’t even let me be _normal_ for once. It’s not fair!” 

Lee was already walking away, dismissing her, so Clem leaned over the stair rail so she could still shout without having to come downstairs. “It’s _Homecoming!”_

Lee stopped in the kitchen, and she could feel his chill from across the room. “And that’s why I say no.”

It didn’t matter how much progress they had almost made. It didn’t matter that Lee had pretended to negotiate terms. It all boiled down to one thing: he didn’t trust her. With a vicious growl, Clementine snatched up her book bag and stormed up to the isolation of her bedroom. 

Lee didn’t give her his blessing to attend Homecoming? Fine. She didn’t need it.

Clem knew how to stuff pillows under her comforter to make it look like she was asleep. She knew the house’s alarm code. She knew how to climb down a tree. And even if Lee came out looking for her—and she knew that was a strong possibility—it wouldn’t matter. Because now, more than ever, she was determined to get out of her pressure cooker before she _actually_ went crazy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A pregame chapter before Homecoming, with a shot of teenage angst and served over ice.
> 
> thanks for reading, guys.*


End file.
